Sustainable Business Practices for Rural Development: Intellectual Capital Perspective

Though the world is rapidly urbanizing, but most of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. Sound government policies are required to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the context of rural areas. Rural Development Initiatives require developing leaders and networking those leaders to create rural economic vitality. Many social scientists are finding it difficult to develop a rural development model, which is capable of bringing a paradigm shift. Sustainable rural development requires various initiatives in terms of society, economy and use of available natural resources. Further, such initiatives can be successful only when started at the bottom level with the help of local resources. Looking into the aforesaid rural development issues, the present chapter highlights on the role of intellectual capital, which can be considered as a DNA for the business growth for rural development. The intellectual capital has been studied from three perspectives, that is, human, relational and structural, that have been researched through both the conceptual and empirical spectrum.