The Development, enactment and social implications of digital entrepreneurship: Insights from a rural Chinese village

Awareness of the importance of Digital Entrepreneurship (DE) to contemporary society is growing and yet, there is currently a lack of research on how it is developed and enacted, as well as its social implications. Towards addressing these gaps, we conducted a pilot case study of Peixie village, an agricultural community in rural China that has grown into a vibrant e-commerce hub, in this research-in-progress paper. Our findings suggest that the development of DE can traverse across three stages of maturity. Moreover, the enactment of DE stems from Belief Formation, which is the result of tensions that can arise when the motivation and ability of a digital entrepreneur to engage in DE activities are at odds with limitations imposed by the business environment. DE Actions are thus enacted to ease those tensions, which can give rise to social implications in the form of Digital Ecosystem Development and Identity Transformation.