Liberating the Other 700 Million: Strategies of Rural Entrepreneurs in China’s E-Commerce Revolution

To date, entrepreneurship in rural areas, which contain roughly 45% of the world’s population, has received scanty attention compared to entrepreneurship in developed regions. While scholars in developmental economics have looked at topics ranging from microfinance to business training, quite worrisome is the shortage of research on the strategies adopted by rural entrepreneurs. Using a major eCommerce platform as the research setting, I propose to study how rural entrepreneurs strategically differentiate their businesses, engage in innovative activities, and influence other villagers to conduct entrepreneurial activities. My project will mainly make use of three methods – big data analysis, experiment, and case studies. In so doing, I aim to contribute to the entrepreneurship and strategy literature as well as advance the current understanding of rural entrepreneurship at large.