An Iowa State faculty member is collaborating with two Texas A&M faculty and a Michigan State faculty member on a $499,996 USDA rural development grant.

Linda Niehm, professor in apparel, events and hospitality management and a Dean’s Faculty Fellow in the College of Human Sciences, is collaborating with Craig Carpenter and Rebekka Dudensing of Texas A&M University, and Scott Loveridge of Michigan State University. Niehm is an expert in entrepreneurship and small business and in particular small, retail-related businesses.

“This is a four-year project,” Niehm said. “We’re developing baseline information for a rural community and business matching process and then developing a predictive model using big data sources [US Census data].” 

This study is meant to develop a model that can better predict which types of businesses are more likely to be successful and sustainable in given rural counties and regions. Ultimately, this model will be incorporated as a tool for extension leaders and other business consultants to use in their work with rural communities.

“We want this to be disseminated, to be used by extension and other business assistance sources, to have impact and be useful,” Niehm said.

During the past summer, Niehm’s research team completed a beta test in Iowa for a virtual focus group. Now that the process has been refined, the next steps will include multi-state focus group interviews and modeling research.

Niehm’s team will also prepare educational materials and a toolkit to teach extension specialists how to use the predictive model. They will go out to work with other extension leaders to teach them how to use it.

After business extension leaders have learned how to use the tool kit, they will be able to utilize it in their efforts to assist rural business owners.

“We are very excited about this project,” Carpenter said. “We are the first project to use big data in this way for an Extension research project. We are really happy to have Linda Niehm on his project. Her experience and expertise with small rural businesses will be very helpful for us.”

“There are a lot of challenges for these smaller communities and businesses that operate in these locations, but limited sources of local assistance,” Niehm said. “They have to reinvent themselves if they’re going to survive and sustain and still need to shift the way that they’ve been doing business.”

The USDA grant will help to inform rural communities and economic development specialists on what types of businesses may have the best chance of success in specific rural communities.

“My research and outreach work focuses on is helping these businesses and communities,” Niehm said. “You can’t just try to help a business in isolation; you also need to consider community factors. The business is located within the community and they’re interdependent upon each other.”

Niehm hopes to aid business generate fresh ideas.

“We can help these businesses with innovative marketing and management strategies, and how to level the competitive playing field by being more multi-channel in the operation,” Niehm said.