Since the 1980s, a total of 221 small‐ and medium‐sized rural industrial estates have been established primarily to induce economic growth into the rural areas in Korea. Despite a growing interest in the performance of the rural industrial estates, it has not been closely examined. The purpose of this paper is to find the plausible factors that have a significant influence on the performance of the rural industrial estates, thereby providing a general understanding of the structural relationship between the estate performance and its determinants. An econometric modeling approach, called LISREL, is used to carry out this evaluation. Of several influential determinants distinguished, seven variables appear to be of substantial significance. They include the urbanization and industrialization of the estate host community, the accessibility of the individual estates to the major cities, the distances from the estates to the large industrial complexes, the local tax rates, and the government loans and incentives. The findings imply that more favorable are the estates constructed within the labor market boundaries of the major cities and adjacent to large industrial complexes. In addition to the location and environmental factors, financial funds and incentives will continue to remain as an influential factor for the success or failure of the esta