Village Enterprises Research Articles

Rural Entrepreneurship Development Ecosystem An Emerging Paradigm of Rural Socio-Economic Development

This paper aims at appreciating the need for and relevance of understanding conceptual paradigm of Rural entrepreneurship Development, Emerging entrepreneurial eco-system, Rural Entrepreneurs and the creation of Micro and small village enterprises. Enterprises in rural environments are operating in an arena of extreme and rapid change. However, despite the recognition that entrepreneurship is one of the primary facets through which rural economic development can be achieved, empirical research on rural entrepreneurship is relatively sparse and this concept remains largely unknown. Entrepreneurship is a crucial element for each country that aims to be competitive and developed within knowledge-based world economy. The emerging domain of Rural Entrepreneurship envisions itself as a body of knowledge to accelerate the process of Rural Industrialization in the country. Rural entrepreneurship is currently at the focus of much theoretical, practical and political interest. Rural entrepreneurship stands as a vehicle to improve the quality of life for individuals, families and communities and to sustain a healthy economy and environment. Rural Entrepreneurship Development (RED) Ecosystem represents a novel and cost-effective strategy for stimulating rural economic prosperity. The need for RED Ecosystem stems from the observation that when we see societies in which entrepreneurship occurs with any regularity or is self-sustaining, we see a unique, complex environment or ecosystem has evolved. This paper draws upon a broader research work based on the doctoral dissertation about the Appraisal of Rural Entrepreneurship Development that makes a focused attempt to address and appraise the issues pertaining to the Rural Entrepreneurship Development (RED) Ecosystem facilitating the development and sustenance of micro and small village enterprise (MSVEs) and the role of various Entrepreneurship Development Institutions fostering rural entrepreneurship and development of micro and small village enterprise (MSVEs) in Haryana and evaluation of various governmental efforts and schemes intended for rural industrialisation through rural poverty alleviation programmes aiming at entrepreneurship development in the rural areas of the economy.

한국과 일본의 마을기업 비교 : 사회적 기업가 정신과 마케팅 전략을 중심으로

한국과 일본의 마을기업 비교 : 사회적 기업가 정신과 마케팅 전략을 중심으로

Hakuna Matata or When Cultures Collide: Navigating Institutional Abundance in Rural Africa

In this paper, we examine why and how social enterprises may fail in foreign developing contexts despite promising conditions and initial success. Using data on Villages for Africa (VFA), a social enterprise that provided ‘macro-credits’ to groups of villages and helped them establish their own village enterprises in rural Tanzania, we explore how the organization failed when – counterintuitively – starting to realize its mission to ‘help villagers help themselves.’ By strategically fostering emotional investment of rural communities into their newly-established village enterprises, villagers’ institutional ‘void’ effectively ‘swallowed’ VFA’s macro-credit model as rural community members started to adapt the intervention in accordance with their context’s normative demands. The increased sense of cultural ownership that villagers displayed for VFA’s development intervention led to a normative collision of cultures and forced VFA to abandon its operations in the region. Among other aspects, our findings suggest the re-conceptualization of institutional voids not as the absence, but the presence of culturally embedded, densely packed institutional arrangements that particularly foreign organizations have to learn to navigate in order to survive.

The Impact of Regional and Institutional Factors on Labor Productive Performance—Evidence from the Township and Village Enterprise Sector in China

This paper investigates the determinants of Township and Village Enterprise (TVE) labour productivity in China, examining behaviour at both the national and regional levels. The results suggest that human capital, the real wage level, foreign intensity, export intensity, capital investment, and firm size are the most important factors affecting labour productivity at the national level, but their relative importance varies significantly between the regions. The results also indicate that government privatization reforms had a major impact on labour productivity in the TVE sector across the regions

Agglomeration or dispersion? Industrial land-use pattern and its impacts in rural areas from China's township and village enterprises perspective

With the onset of industrialization over the past several decades, the rural areas are undergoing considerable changes in China. Optimal rural industrial land use distribution provides a spatial foundation for sustainable development in rural areas. Moreover, the importance of appropriate rural industrial land use adjustment is evident in rural spatial restructuring. This paper investigates rural industrial land use patterns and its impact on rural areas in Pinggu District of Beijing based on a combined method of “landscape indices” and the “geospatial analysis.” Subsequently, this paper proposes a rural industrial land use adjustment. The results show that according to the relevance of township and village enterprises (TVEs) to rural development, rural industrial land can be classified as rural industry land (RI-land) and non-rural industry land (NI-land). “Small scale, spontaneous dispersion” is the overall rural industrial land use pattern in China, and the spatial patterns between the two types of rural industrial land are quite different: the pattern “dispersion inside rural settlements” is usually observed in RI-land, while “agglomeration around regional central towns” and “linear sprawl” are common on NI-land. Considering the peculiarity of TVEs, the dispersion for RI-land is designed to absorb the surplus labor and raw materials nearby in the countryside to enhance their output-efficiency, whereas the agglomeration for NI-land is to pursue the efficiency of agglomeration economies. This paper also revealed that current disperse rural industrial land use pattern has generated polluting effects on the environment. Therefore, following the “classification principle,” rural industrial land use adjustment should not merely pursue economic efficiency and agglomeration efficiency but should also engage in labor absorptivity and environmental benefits. The formation and development of rural industrial land in China is quite different from traditional industrial land; these differences are largely attributed to their unique driving mechanisms and historical backgrounds. In particular, the traditional Theories of the Location of Industries directed by “agglomeration,” are unsuitable for rural industrial land in China. Therefore, the results in this paper can help form a basis for sustainable planning of rural industrial land and contribute to rural transformation development in China.

华北农民非正规就业的微观形态: 基于河北定县两个村庄的考察

Research on informal employment in China has mainly adopted an urban perspective, ignoring its rural social and economic dimensions. This article, adopting a rural perspective, not only takes into considerations a greater number of informal forms of employment, such as part-time businesses and self-employment, but also explores the mechanisms that differentiate the various types of informal employment by comparing the level of development of township and village enterprises and changes in the mode of agricultural management. The article discusses the forms and evolution of informal employment in two villages in Dingxian (Ting Hsien) 定县, a county that has been studied in depth since the 1920s. Our study finds that the distance between township enterprises and the village is an important factor influencing peasants’ informal employment since it largely determines the choice of peasants to “leave both the land and the village” or to “leave the land but not the village,” which in turn further affects the level of peasants’ incomes. Compared with employees in the formal sector, these informal employees are obviously in a weak position in terms of wage levels, working conditions, welfare, security, and so on. As for the internal environment, changes of the mode of rural production also affect the forms of informal employment. The large-scale operation of the land will liberate the agricultural labor force, so as to expand the potential scale of farmers’ employment, and the shift from growing food crops to growing cash crops will lead to more diversified forms of farmers’ concurrent businesses. Finally, the article tries to establish a framework composed of the internal and external environment of the village to explain the mechanism of peasants’ informal employment. 国内关于非正规就业的研究，大多是以城市为观察视角，忽视了非正规就业人员身后的农村社会经济状况。把农村作为研究的起点，不仅可以纳入更多的非正规就业形式，如农民兼业和个体经营等,更为重要的是，它还能够通过对比“传统部门”内不同程度的乡镇企业发展与农业经营方式变化，从而发现非正规就业的差异化形成机制。作为上世纪20年代就已备受学界关注的农村社会，河北定县有着深厚的学术研究传统。本研究选取了当地两个具有不同特征的村庄，发现附近是否存在乡镇企业很大程度上决定了农民打工的距离远近，即离乡还是不离乡，这也进一步影响农民收入水平的高低。无论是以建筑业为主的离乡务工，还是以作坊式乡镇企业为主的在乡务工，其员工的工资水平、工作条件和福利保障等方面均处于不利位置。与此同时，农村内部经营方式变化也会影响、甚至促成新的非正规就业。土地规模经营更大程度上解放了农业劳动力，客观上扩大了农民外出的潜在规模；从种植粮食作物到经济作物的转变，使得农民兼业形式变得更加多样化。最后，我们尝试建立一个由村庄内外部环境共同作用形成的经验框架来解释农村非正规就业的变化机制。 (This article is in English.)

Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Spatial Determinants of Urban Growth in Suzhou, China

This paper analyzes the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban growth and models its spatial determinants in China through a case study of Suzhou, a rapidly industrializing and globalizing city. We conducted spatial analysis on land use data derived from multi-temporal remote sensing images of Suzhou from 1986 to 2008. Three urban growth types, namely infilling, edge-expansion, and leapfrog, were identified. We used landscape metrics to quantify the temporal trend of urban growth in Suzhou. During these 22 years, Suzhou’s urbanization changed from bottom-up rural urbanization to city-based top-down urban expansion. The underlying mechanism changed from TVE (town village enterprise) driven rural industrialization to FDI (foreign direct investment) driven development zone fever. Furthermore, we employed both global and local logistic regressions to model the probability of urban land conversion against a set of spatial variables. The global logistic regression model found the significance of proximity, neighborhood conditions, and socioeconomic factors. The logistic geographically weighted regression (GWR) model improved the global regression model with better model goodness-of-fit and higher prediction accuracy. More importantly, the local parameter estimates of variables enabled us to exam spatial variations of the influences of variables on urban growth in Suzhou.

Innovative strategies for the development of rural India through village cottage and agribusiness enterprises

In rural India the village, cottage and agribusiness enterprises (VCA) form the prominent part of the economy, but are still lagging behind in adopting innovative business strategies. The government is focusing more on promoting large-scale industries and paying lesser attention to the VCA. It is essential for the VCA of rural India to create innovative solutions for their sustainable development. These solutions can come in the form of innovative product, structure, process and marketing efforts. Drawing upon this background, this paper aims to explore and understand existing solutions, by analysing selective 'successful sustainable business models' like Amul India, Suguna Chickens, PepsiCo India, ITC e-Choupal, McCain India and Cottage Industry in India. The authors have proposed a model of village, cottage and agribusiness enterprises (VCAe) which can be executed in 'not-so-affluent' Asian and African continents.

The Effectiveness of Chinese Regulations on Occupational Health and Safety: A Case Study on China’s Coal Mine Industry

To assess the effectiveness of Chinese regulations on occupational health and safety, this study provides an exploratory method by applying multiple interrupted time series (MITS) analysis. Taking coal mine safety in China as a case study, this article analyzes the background of the coal industry, especially during the period 1980–2009, and selects three typical pieces of national legislation specific to mining and work safety as the interventions. The data relevant to coal mine safety and the ‘third variables’ were collected to empirically support the study. The estimated results indicate different effects of these interventions on state-owned enterprise (SOE) mines and township and village enterprise (TVE) or small mines. Specifically, though the mortality rate in SOE mines is on a downward trend, these interventions have had no significant effect on it. However, only the 2002 act significantly reduced the mortality rate per million tons in TVE mines. The effectiveness of the interventions seems to depend on certain conditions, such as technology, administration and socioeconomic environment and type of coal mine.

Financing village enterprises in rural Bangladesh

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that determine non-farm enterprise revenue and to empirically test the association between access to credit, credit source and firm performance among poor entrepreneurs in rural Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachUsing a Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and World Bank survey from over 1,700 households in rural Bangladesh, a panel data model is used to control for unobserved heterogeneity among households and explore the determinants of non-farm revenue.FindingsThe findings suggest that village infrastructure and household labor assets have a positive impact on enterprise development. The findings reveal that the use of rural credit as a production input is important in augmenting revenue for the non-farm enterprise, but there are differential effects by credit source.Research limitations/implicationsBecause the study uses data from a quasi-experimental survey design, unobserved effects that can bias the results must be controlled for. Also, as credit program impacts can be location-specific, caution in generalizing the results of this study must be exercised.Practical implicationsThis study provides evidence on the positive effects of microcredit, family assets and family social capital on economic outcomes and microenterprise growth for poor entrepreneurial households. If enterprise growth is important for development, greater understanding of the determinants of microenterprise performance and the role of credit in the success of microfirms is beneficial for policymakers and the institutions that finance small-scale production.Social implicationsIf it is agreed that entrepreneurship is important in promoting development, self-sufficiency and positive economic outcomes (Yunus, 2007), then credit program design should focus on both the credit needs of the poor and the dynamics inherent in enterprise development for this group of entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThis paper expands the limited literature on the determinants of microenterprise growth and the role of credit in microenterprise development by tracing a positive link between village infrastructure, family demographics and access to credit. The identification of the factors that determine non-farm enterprise revenue is important for policymakers because enterprise growth is perceived as essential for economic development.

Quantifying Poverty Temporal Changes in Association with Rural Transition in Guangxi, China

Poverty is a social problem in developing countries, especially for the rural places experiencing rapid transition. This study characterizes the temporal changes of rural poverty under rural transition during 1991–2010 in Guangxi. In particular, poverty is measured by the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke method, and rural transition is described from three aspects including rural industrialization, regional urbanization, and agriculture commercialization. Relationships are quantified by multivariate linear regression. Results reveal that industry income proportion (IIP) and secondary industry proportion (SIP) are positive contributors to the poverty incidence, while urban-rural income gap (URIG) is a negative contributor to the poverty incidence. Industrial total output of township and village enterprises (ITOE), IIP, and grain commercialization rate (GCR) present positive correlation with the poverty depth. The URIG has a negative correlation with the poverty depth. Tertiary industry proportion (TIP) and expenditure on fixed productive assets per capita (EFPA) are positively correlated with the poverty severity, while URIG and power of agricultural machinery (PAM) associate with poverty severity negatively. Redundancy analysis shows that individual influence of rural industrialization is higher than that of regional urbanization and agriculture commercialization. The joint influences of rural industrialization, regional urbanization, and agriculture commercialization are the strongest.

From Privatization to Deindustrialization: Implications of Chinese Rural Industry and the Ownership Debate Revisited

Summary This paper examines the evolution of Chinese rural industry since the rural reform in the late 1970s and revisits the debate on the role of ownership. Based on a case study of W county in southern Jiangsu province as well as drawing on national data, the author shows that the community-based market dynamic had been a key factor in the expansion of rural enterprises and that its weakening in recent years has led to the closing of village enterprises and deindustrialization of the countryside. Large-scale land expropriation, sponsored by local government, is the principal factor responsible for the change.

The influence of gender and other characteristics on rural laborers’ employment patterns in the mountainous and upland areas of Sichuan, China

This study examines gender differences in rural laborers' employment patterns in the mountainous and upland areas of Sichuan, China. The analysis employs both representative survey data of 400 households and geographical data. Multinomial logistic regression models are used to analyze the influences of gender, among other factors, on employment decisions of rural males and females, where the factors considered include personal, household, community natural environmental characteristics. Dividing laborers into four categories, we find that the proportions of males who participating in on-farm, pluriactive, and off-farm work, and unemployment were 24.41%, 28.64%, 46.27%, and 0.68% respectively, while that of females who participating in on-farm, pluriactive, and off-farm work, and unemployment were 43.20%, 13.95%, 30.95%, and 11.90% respectively. As to individual characteristics, age (AGE) and physical condition (PHY) effects appeared to be more pronounced for men, while education (EDU) and marital status (MAR) effects appeared to be more pronounced for women. Regarding household and community characteristics, the effects of the presence in the household of children aged 6- (CHI), number of persons in the household (POP), and labor force (LAB), per capita income in village (INCV), and the development status of village enterprises (ENT) on women were greater than that on men. In addition, the presence in the household of elderly individuals aged 65+ (OLD) and time to reach the nearest township (TIME) are shown to have opposite impacts on men and women. While the presence in the household of pupils (PUP) and per capital gross value of industrial output (GVIO) was found to be irresponsive to men and women taking pluriavtivity and off-farm job. With respect to natural environments characteristics, the effects on men were opposite of those on women. Unemployment of women was found to be particularly responsive to household characteristics. A multinomial regression approach is undertaken to analyze rural males' and females' decisions of the four employment patterns considered, an approach that reveals considerable heterogeneity that is concealed by the dichotomous approach employed in most previous studies. The study thus contributes to our understanding of rural employment patterns and gender difference in mountainous and upland areas.

China's town and village enterprises and its implications for Sub-Saharan Africa

The successful development of China's town and village enterprises (TVEs) has significantly absorbed enormous rural labour surplus during the agricultural transformation and the process of urbanisation between 1984 and 2014. TVEs played an important role in poverty reduction and increasing income for rural labours in China, when markets were dysfunctional and institutions were changing during the 1980s and 1990s. Assessments have concluded that Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has similar challenges and conditions with respect to agricultural transformation and managing urbanisation to those of China in the 1980s-1990s. This research uses interviews and case studies gathered mainly in China in 2014. The research finds that dramatic development of TVEs helped China to get rid of the development dilemma of a dualistic economic structure in rural and urban areas, which can bring valuable lessons for SSA. The definition of TVEs in this article has been extended to inclusive local enterprise organisations. This research suggests feasible policies to promote local social enterprises with inclusive development entrepreneurship in SSA.

Business Sharing its Progress with Villagers Towards Developing Model Villages

In a developing country like India, village-centric development is very critical for improving Human Development Index of the country. In this direction, corporate contribution assumes significance for rehabilitation and resettlement of project affected people and overall intervention under its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. Since India is a country of villages, CSR has to be more sensitive towards the economic, social and cultural needs of rural society of the country. In this paper, it is proposed to gear all interventions for promoting model villages. Model village presents a credible vehicle for bringing about sustainability of a village community unit. A model village must have three significant components of infrastructure development, livelihood promotion and provision of services. Infrastructure development must cater to creating basic physical as well as social infrastructure like approach road, school building, community centre and social capital. Promotion of livelihood includes skill training, self-employment, employment opportunities and village enterprise development, while provision for services for the villagers includes health care, education, sanitation, recreational and other community services. Model village plan envisages a self-contained village community at the apex of all the pillars of sustainability, namely, livelihood, infrastructure and services. The future of Indian economy and the prospect of industry are going to depend largely on building sustainable and self-maintained smallest self-governing units called model villages.

Rural development led by autonomous village land cooperatives: Its impact on sustainable China’s urbanisation in high-density regions

As a main rural initiative, village land shareholding cooperatives spearhead non-agricultural development in the interest of rural communities, and thus participate in urbanisation. Nanhai, Guangdong, is a case in illustration. The institution of land shareholding cooperatives gives rise to unique compartmentalised industrialisation and fragmented urbanisation in the context of high population density and small-area autonomous villages. Village cooperatives are mutated from economic corporations to welfare organisations, prompted by the collapse of village enterprises. Being averse to investment for long-term productivity, village cooperatives indulge in extracting short-term land rents solely. Extracting land economic rents created by urbanisation, village cooperatives generate environmental and social equality problems. High-density low-income countries, especially in Asia, are facing a great challenge as fierce competition for limited urban land resources without effective governance often results in an unfavourable form of urbanisation. Sustainable compact urbanisation needs to strike a balance between local autonomy and urban integrity.

The investment climate and enterprise performance in rural Pakistan: implications for rural non-farm employment generation

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the profile of village and small-town enterprises in Pakistan drawing on a large-scale survey of enterprises. Although the enterprise sector does not appear to be particularly dynamic, the data indicate that there has been employment growth in this sector. The average annual compound employment growth has been about 1% in village enterprises and 3% in small-town enterprises. Access to formal finance, the cost of finance and cumbersome loan procedures pose major challenges for rural entrepreneurs in Pakistan, particularly in terms of availing of long-term financing for investment purposes. Access to and quality of electricity supply, marketing difficulties and transportation-related problems also pose major obstacles. These obstacles have a negative impact on enterprise productivity and the level of investments made by existing firms and discourage the start-up of new enterprises. Addressing the constraints faced by non-farm business in villages and small towns is needed to promote private investments, generate employment and reduce poverty.

Economic transition, industrial location and corporate networks: Remaking the Sunan Model in Wuxi City, China

This research investigates the transition of the Sunan model, which was centered on local-state directed township and village enterprises (TVEs), through a case study of Wuxi City. Based on questionnaire surveys and firm/government interviews, we have found that Wuxi has been undergoing a series of institutional changes, economic transition and spatial restructuring. TVEs have been replaced by domestic private enterprises and to a lesser extent, foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs). However, in comparison with Suzhou, a leading city in Sunan (southern Jiangsu) where FIEs are a major driving force of economic restructuring, domestic capital and private firms have played a more important role in Wuxi. It is found that domestic firms in Wuxi have their own local production networks, rather than forming networks with FIEs. Moreover, local governments remain a key agent of economic transition and firm (re)location. The case of Wuxi highlights the multiple trajectories of remaking the Sunan model, the strong hand of local states, and the uneven process of economic development.

Organisational change and development of reformed Chinese township and village enterprises

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the organisational changes (OCs) and the development of Chinese reformed township and village enterprises (RTVEs), their marketing and R&D strategies, and the impact of changes in terms of overall performance.Design/methodology/approachA case study methodology involving semi‐structured interviews is adopted. The unit chosen is the Guotai International Group (GTIG) in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, in which the organisational changes over a period of over 40 years are analysed.FindingsOCs in Chinese RTVEs are found to be driven by a combination of local government plans and market forces. Considering the hybrid nature of the organisation and ownership structures, changes in Chinese RTVEs follow a very much “top‐down” approach.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings imply that managers appointed by the state in RTVEs usually lack the necessary skills in marketing and business management, and can be resistant to organisational changes, such as the willingness to undertake risks. As a result, RTVEs may become stuck in a cycle of low‐cost, low‐tech products, inhibiting any breakthrough in developing their own quality brands.Originality/valueThis is one of few papers studying change over a long span of time to arrive at research findings that will be useful to academic researchers in their future work. The qualitative findings from this paper would also enrich the literatures on organisational change in Chinese RTVEs.

Township and village enterprises (TVEs)

Township and village enterprises (TVEs)