The Assessment of Degree of Rural Settlers’ Satisfaction with Respect to Provision of Cooperative Village Councils’ Services – Case: Cooperative Council of Dashtesar

Introduction: Cooperative firms after government and private sectors are being considered as a third dimension of any economy. The numbers of this type of firms are increasing. This in turn has let to great revenues which would well justify their value and importance. Nowadays, there are many cooperative firms with different names but all have one goal in common, that is the achievement of development. Women cooperative firm in Turkey, municipality cooperative firm of European countries, specialized agricultural cooperative firms in China, rural cooperative firm as well as housing and service cooperative firms in Iran are among some of this type of firms. Iran has another type that is village cooperative firms. This type of firm established in 1387. Their major objective is to help village council institution regarding handling their executive affairs, development of the villages and rendering of better services to the rural settlers. There exist 733 of this type of firm in the country capable of providing services to the rural people. This study aims to assess the degree of rural settlers’ satisfaction regarding services rendered by Dashtesar (Amol) cooperative. It further tries to individually investigate the degree of rural settlers’ satisfaction regarding provision of physical and cultural services. Research Method: This study based on its objectives has applied nature. It demands descriptive as well as analytical method. Data gathering is composed of both documentary and field works including observation, interviews and filling out questionnaires. The selection of the targetvillages out of 31 villages was based on number of population, distance from the city as well as from the major road. As such 9 villages were selected using clustering stratified sampling technique. The composition of these 9 indicate 3 villages out of those with high, medium and low population located close to the city and major roads, 3 villages out of those with low, medium and high with medium distance from the city and major roads, and 3 villages out of those with high, medium and low population located far from the city and major roads. The statistical society composed of 135 rural households resides in Dashtesar which were chosen via simple random sampling method. The analysis of data demands application of Chi square test, and one way analysis of variation (ANOVA).  Discussion and Conclusion: According to chi square test regarding provision of physical services such as rendering services in the area of supervision on construction activities (to some extent) and issuing building licenses (little), those cooperative were able to satisfy the rural settlers. This is followed by environmental services rendered by these cooperatives including waste disposal and creation of sanitary field. However, regarding the provision of other environmental services, these cooperatives were not successful. With respect to provision of social – cultural rendered services they were fairly active in the area of renovating historical and religious places and to some extent holding cultural – religious ceremonies and sport events. However, these cooperatives were not successful in other cultural contexts. Results pertaining to T-test indicate that rural settlers were unsatisfied regarding the provision of environmental, social, cultural and physical dimensions. Based on one way analysis of variation, social and environmental services possess the least average. However, the physical dimension possesses the highest average. That means, these rural cooperatives through rendering physical services were able to satisfy the rural settlers. The results associated with F-test indicate the rural settlers are more satisfied with provision of physical services. This study suggests that settlers of Booran and Nezamabad possess more positive attitudes toward services rendered by these cooperatives as opposed to Ghalian Kola, Noabad, Shadmahal, Mzres, Zvark o Pashakla.