Abstract:

When it comes to technological transformation in rural e-commerce, the role of marginal farmers cannot be overlooked. Marginal peasant households are the key drivers behind the emergence and development of e-commerce villages. Previous studies on the development of e-commerce villages have yet to establish an explanatory link between micro actions to macro outcomes. This study is grounded in a case analysis of Nanzhuang Village in Cao County, Shandong Province, China. Through field surveys, data are collected on the village's social networks, the diffusion of e-commerce skills, and the engagement of households in e-commerce entrepreneurship. First, the core-periphery model proposed by Borgatti and Everett is applied to to classify the social structural positions of households within the village. Analysis of the dynamic e-commerce entrepreneurship participation rates across these positions reveals that the earliest e-commerce entrepreneurs come from semi-peripheral or peripheral positions, rather than from the social core in the village. Further analysis of the e-commerce skill diffusion network data using blockmodeling and relational event modeling (REM) indicates that the diffusion of e-commerce skills in village is also primarily driven by marginal peasant households. Furthermore, this study investigates the dimension of collective attitudes. Through examining mutual influences among households and combining computational simulations with empirical observational data, this study offers a bottom-up, generative explanation for the emergence of e-commerce villages. It seeks to reveal the critical conditions and underlying mechanisms that enable marginal households to be the first to trigger this transformation. The analysis finds that the initial open-minded attitude toward e-commerce entrepreneurship of marginal peasant households served as a crucial condition in the formation of e-commence villages. At the same time, the emergence of such villages is also closely tied to the renewal of collective mindset in the village led by marginal peasant households.

Key words: marginal peasant households, emergence of E-commerce village, network analysis, computational simulation