Impacts Of Farmers’ Social-relations Network On Their Performances In E-commerce Businesses From The Perspective Of Resources Embedment

As the Internet technology continues to advance and increasingly popularize,electronic commerce(e-commerce)has found applications in many business sectors and industries in China.Traditional agriculture economy has been undergoing a gradual change towards transaction on e-commerce basis.This helped promote the circulation of agricultural products,the development of rural economy,and the living standards of rural residents.In recent years,the State government has placed an increasing emphasis on popularizing the applications of the Internet in rural areas,and introduced arrays of policies on regulating e-commerce,advancing e-commerce in rural areas,and promoting modernization of agriculture and rural villages.Farmers are the main forces to vigorously promote the circulation of agricultural products from the source of production.Unfortunately,they could do little in deepening the integration between the circulation of agricultural products and the Internet technology,due to their inadequate understanding of e-commerce.In a community featuring acquaintances,farmers were subject to the inevitable interferences from their social network while they made decision on e-commerce businesses.Resources play a vital role in performing social interactions,but many farmers failed to find approaches to effective use of the resources.This weakened farmers’ willingness to conduct e-commerce businesses.Difference in resources network may have a diverse impact on farmers in making behavioral decisions.Resources acquisition would,therefore,be an accessible starting point to analyze and explore the substantive impacts of farmers’ socialrelations network upon their performances in e-commerce businesses.Such a research is supposed to be of striking practical significance.Taking 375 households of apple-planting farmers in Wanrong and Linyi of Shanxi province as its subjects for investigation,the present thesis is intended to explore the mechanisms governing the impacts of the farmers’ social-relations network upon their engagement in e-commerce businesses from the perspective of resources embedment.Such exploration was performed on the grounds of social network theory,embeddedness theory,and the theory of planned behavior,in the hope of providing decision-making evidence and policymaking reference for competent government offices in their endeavors to promote e-commerce in rural areas.In the present research,SPSS 26.0 was utilized to characterize such parameters of the sampled subjects as social backgrounds(including personal profiles,family origins,and social environments),cognitive psychology(including attitudes,norms and conventions,and control of perceptions),social-relations network,engagement in e-commerce,and performance in ecommerce,etc.Reliability of the data was tested via observing Cronbach’s alpha of the data,correlation between the revised data items and their sum total,and the Cronbach coefficient of the data after deletion.Validity of the survey scale was calculated based on contents validity and structure validity.Utilizing Amos 23.0,the present thesis adopted structural equation model to empirically test the direct impact of farmers’ social-relations network on their performances in e-commerce businesses,and the indirect impact of farmer’s social-relations network on their engagements in e-commerce businesses via the channels of attitudes,norms and conventions,and control of perceptions.These endeavors pave the way for devising accessible approaches to catering for the problem.Research results indicate that,firstly,farmers’ social-relations network tended to have a significantly direct impact on their performances in e-commerce businesses,and that the networks with different types of embedded resources imposed diverse degrees of impacts on farmers’ performances.Emotion network had the most profound impact,followed by assets network and advice network.Secondly,farmers’ social-relations network with different types of embedded resources had indirect impacts their engagements in e-commerce businesses via their attitudes,norms and conventions,and control of perceptions,thus imposing indirect impacts on farmers’ performances in e-commerce businesses.Farmers’ assets network had the most impact on their attitudes and norms and conventions;and farmers’ advice network had the most impact on their control of perceptions.Thirdly,farmers’ cognition on e-commerce policies,household population,and intensiveness of local e-commerce training had significantly positive impacts on farmers’ performances in e-commerce businesses,and that geographical distance between farmers’ residences to express delivery posts had significantly negative impacts on farmers’ suchlike performances,and farmers’ genders had no significant impact.The following arrays of advice were proposed as accessible references in making relevant policies on promoting farmers’ engagement in e-ecommerce businesses and advancing the circulation of agricultural products:(1)Place due emphasis on improving farmers’ cognitive psychology through a diversity of approaches.(2)Relevant management departments and farmers should expand the scale of social network and enhance the exchange of different resources.(3)Logistics outlets could establish corresponding cooperation mechanisms with farmers according to the order quantities of farmers and provide on-site service.(4)Provide e-commerce-related allowances and subsidies for college students,encouraging them to start businesses in their hometowns,and taking advantage of info technology,to promote the development of family economy and regional economy in rural areas.