ICT-empowered rural e-commerce development in China: an adaptive structuration perspective

The emergence of e-commerce has rejuvenated China's backwards and poor remote rural areas. However, knowledge about how information and communication technology (ICT) develops e-commerce business in rural areas is still limited. From the perspective of adaptive structuration theory (AST), we conducted an in-depth case study of four typical e-commerce companies in China's rural areas. The findings suggest that, facilitated by ICT, the development of rural e-commerce consists of the formation of platform strategy (including quality management and revenue structure) and the enactment of related services (including supply chain management (SCM) and marketing services). This process is influenced by firm-specific characteristics and ultimately leads to the intended/unintended outcomes for e-commerce companies and rural development. This study contributes to the information systems (IS) literature by explaining how e-commerce companies utilise ICT to develop their e-commerce business in rural areas from a novel AST perspective.