Entrepreneurial agents, asset modification and new path development in rural China: The study of Gengche model, Jiangsu Province

Abstract

This paper, through a case study of the Gengche Township in north Jiangsu (Subei), unveils how a less-favored region breaks out of the old industry path of waste recycling and processing and embarks on a green new one specializing in E-commerce. Drawing on key concepts in evolutionary economic geography, we propose a conceptual framework that addresses how entrepreneurial agents enact the processes of asset modification at multiple scales for new green path development in a rural context. Based on on-site interviews and survey, our analysis reveals that rural lead entrepreneurs and state elites pioneered and opened windows of opportunities for change, then legitimized by the state with wider support towards old path breaking. These state interventions enforce the bottom-up process of new green path development. In this process, extra-regional knowledge linkages and assets help facilitate the E-commerce development. It is concluded that rural new path development processes are not only contingent on local pre-conditions but are tempo-spatially dependent on collective actions of entrepreneurial multi-actors in identifying, transplanting and modifying local and non-local assets. The Gengche case demonstrates that rural new green path development in China requires the formation of strong system-level rural agency engaging in multi-scalar asset modification.