SEARCHING FOR WORTMAN'S RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONES: A CASE STUDY OF THREE RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES

This study uses Wortman's Rural Economic Development Zones (Wortman, 1990a) and more recent work by Lyons (2002) as a point of departure to demonstrate entrepreneurship development suited to rural locations. We describe the current literature and rural electric cooperatives. Using a case method research design (Yin, 1994), we demonstrate the efforts of three modern rural electric cooperatives in the area of entrepreneurial development. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications to public policy makers, electric cooperative executives and researchers in the field of entrepreneurship.