THE EMERGENCE OF SELF-ORGANIZING E-COMMERCE ECOSYSTEMS IN REMOTE VILLAGES OF CHINA: A TALE OF DIGITAL EMPOWERMENT FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Leong, Carmen; Pan, Shan L.; Newell, Sue; Cui, Lili
• 署名单位: University of New South Wales Sydney; University of Sussex; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
• 刊物名称: MIS QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0276-7783
• DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2016/40.2.11
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 475-+
• 关键词: information-systems; success

摘要

The emergence of Alibaba's Taobao (e-commerce) Villages in remote China has challenged the assumption that rural, underserved communities must always be the recipients of aid to stimulate ICT-enabled development. Based on an in-depth case study of two remote villages in China, this research note shows how ICT (e-commerce) can empower a marginalized community, giving rise to a rural e-commerce ecosystem that can aid self-development. We propose the concept of digital empowerment to explicate our findings in the exploration of community-driven development: first, we identify the critical actors of a rural e-commerce ecosystem and how they use ICTs; second, we illustrate how the same ICT can be used for different affordances by the actors in the evolution of a rural e-commerce ecosystem. The paper also presents unintended consequences of rural e-commerce development. We conclude with suggestions on how to make ICT useful for rural development and, in doing this, challenge some of the prevailing theoretical arguments about this process.