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The emergence of self-organizing e-commerce ecosystems in remote villages of China: a tale of digital empowerment for rural development

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 01:33 authored by Carmen Mei Ling Leong, Shan-Ling Pan, Susan Newell, Lili Cui
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 ICT is used by them; 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.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

MIS Quarterly

ISSN

0276-7783

Publisher

University of Minnesota, Management Information Systems Research Center

Issue

2

Volume

40

Page range

475-484

Department affiliated with

  • Business and Management Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2016-06-07

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2021-03-05

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