Title: Rural e-government for SMEs: case studies in China

Authors: Minyi Huang

Addresses: School of Business, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam Road, Hong Kong, China

Abstract: This paper studies the efforts of developing rural e-government in China to help local farmers, Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to grow and flourish. Three real-life case studies are used to describe the status quo of rural e-government development in China. The merits and limits of each case are assessed in terms of accessibility, usefulness and sustainability. On the basis of the analysis, we suggest the need to improve IT infrastructure in rural areas by having more stakeholder involvements and the need to encourage data and resource sharing among the service providers.

Keywords: rural e-government; China; case study; SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises; electronic government; electronic democracy; local government; rural areas; accessibility; usefulness; sustainability; information technology; IT infrastructure; data sharing; resource sharing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJED.2009.028542

International Journal of Electronic Democracy, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.124 - 135

Published online: 18 Sep 2009 *

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