Influencing factors and empowering mechanism of participation in e-commerce: An empirical analysis on poor households from Inner Mongolia, China

Abstract

A key measure of poverty alleviation is to enhance the overall ability of poor households. This research attempts to identify the influencing factors and empowering mechanism of participation in e-commerce. Firstly, a questionnaire survey was conducted among poor households in Mongolia, China. Based on the collected data, a structural equation model (SEM) was established and modified for the empowerment of rural e-commerce on the participating farmers and herdsmen. The results show that infrastructure factors (0.89), social network factors(0.491), cognitive factors (0.712) and resource endowment factors (0.394) have a significant impact on the participation of poor households in e-commerce; the participation of poor households in e-commerce has a significant effect on the improvement of human capital; online purchase and online sales both greatly promote human capital, and the latter exerts the greater impact (0.705); the indirect effect of the participation in e-commerce (2.198) is greater than the direct effect (0.790) between empowerment factors and human capital. The research results shed new light on the poverty alleviation through rural e-commerce.