Cultivating Online Virtual Community of Purpose to Mitigate Knowledge Asymmetry and Market Separation of Rural Artisans in India

Abstract

One of the key deficiencies in many marginalized rural communities is lack of linkage to local and larger metropolitan area opportunity structure, financial, technical, social and political resources. The primary reason behind this is the knowledge asymmetry between rural communities and the urban marketplace and associated agencies, which often disallows rural artisans to sustain profitable entrepreneurial ventures. Knowledge asymmetry occurs when one party (the artisans) in an economic transaction possesses lesser market knowledge (or, lesser understanding about the market context in which a business operates) than the other party (urban marketplace and associated agencies). The resultant market separation derivative of knowledge asymmetry necessitates dependence on middlemen and resultant lack of autonomy for the rural artisans, which often impedes a rural community in achieving workable levels of self-sufficiency. This paper proposes building an online virtual community of purpose to mitigate knowledge asymmetry and market separation of Indian rural artisans. The community of purpose is defined as a community of people, who are going through the same process or are trying to achieve a similar objective. The paper concludes by providing an architectural framework of a Community Information System (CIS), through which we have attempted in building a virtual community of purpose for rural Indian artisans by connecting them digitally with other relevant actors in the craft production system.