Transformation of the Competencies of Municipal Employees for Sustainable Development of Rural Areas

The presented research study contains the results of the scientific team’s work on a coordinated research strategy and provides a detailed analysis of empirical material in the framework to improve the competence profile of municipal staff and to ensure sustainable systemic development of agro-territories in the southern part of Russia. Reviews of the publication of the Scopus database show the relevance of the scientific search for significant factors of sustainable rural development for different countries and the role of municipal staff in this process. In the experimental part of the study, we studied the practices of municipal staff in the southern part of Russia in the field of competencies’ implementation for running agrarian advancement projects. A total of 36 active municipal employees took part in the survey. The results were processed in the SPSS statistics program (version 24). The factor analysis procedures were performed using the rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization. The structural model statistically substantiates the areas for building the competence profile of municipal employees for the sustainable systematic development of rural areas: the ability to properly organize the project work of the municipality’s management team, confident possession of tools for cultivating entrepreneurial initiative in rural areas, making balanced decisions based on data. The research strategy can be applied in the design of structural models in other subject areas of socio-economic practice.