Entrepreneurial local-state driven rural e-commerce development: Evidence from less-developed rural West China

Though ICT infrastructure and e-commerce emerged first in urban areas, they are increasingly being used by rural community to help mitigate geographical isolation and information asymmetries. This study investigates how e-commerce is exploited and harnessed towards rural development in the less-developed rural West China. It draws on field research into e-commerce development in Xiushan, a county-level territory of Chongqing Municipality of West China. The key actors across state, market and community and their interactions formed in rural e-commerce practices are investigated to decipher how e-commerce is exploited to foster rural development in West China. In the case of Xiushan in less-developed rural West China, rural e-commerce practice is found as an entrepreneurial development mode practised by different actors. The formation of this novel regional development mode is driven by its entrepreneurial local state (county-level government), which mobilises and leverages private sector via different agents to empower grass-root rural entrepreneurs to get participated. This research sheds light on how ICTs and e-commerce can be exploited to catalyse breakthroughs in rural development in a wider context of Global South.