零售业电子商务
Retail E-commerce and socio-economic development:
conceptualizing the link
作者：Richard Boateng； Richard Heeks； Alemayehu Molla； Robert Hinson 国籍：UK ；UK ；Australia ；Ghana
出处：Internet Research, 2008, Vol.18 (5)
原文正文：
E-commerce and trade
This considers e-commerce’s impact in facilitating trade and other income generating activities including contribution to the gross national product through exports and entrepreneurship and employment opportunities at the local and national level. Trade through exports serves as a critical contribution to economic growth in many economies of DCs. The successful experiences of countries such as Thailand, China, Taiwan and Singapore, give evidence to trade being an important stimulus to rapid economic growth (Todaro and Smith, 2003, p. 543). DC organizations adopting and implementing e-commerce stand to have a potential advantage in savings in transactional costs, and discovering new markets for their products to increase their reach. Access to global commodity chains and international trade tends to contribute to social and economic development in DCs: by“utilising idle human and capital resources” (Todaro and Smith, 2003, p. 543), thus creating employment, and by“earning foreign exchan ge from commodity exports to finance the imports of capital goods and other essentials for domestic development” (Maizels, 2000, p. 169).
On the other hand, the inelasticities of supply and demand within the world commodity markets make a high dependence on commodity exports a major handicap to these efforts of achieving development. This is characterised by the fact that most non-oil exporting DCs have experienced a slow growth or decline of commodity or primary-products exports, a deterioration in the trade terms for primary-products, and a form of “protectionism” against the exports of manufactured and agricultural processed goods from DCs over the past few
decades (Todaro and Smith, 2003, pp. 69, 558, 575). The slow growth stems from several reasons including:
(1) a shift in developed countries from low technology, material-intensive goods to high
technology, skill-intensive products, which decreases demand for raw materials; (2) increased efficiency in industrial uses of raw materials; and (3) the substitution of synthetics for natural raw materials like rubber, copper and cotton (Todaro and Smith, 2003, p. 575).
In effect, there tend to be several challenges in seeking economic development through exports. While these challenges cannot be addressed by e-commerce alone, they point out that achieving operational efficiency and the possibility of expanding market share in current export trade is critical to ensure the survival of DC firms, and thereby generate more revenue through foreign exchange for their countries. Operational efficiency, as discussed earlier, tends to be a basic attractive incentive for DC firms to implement e-commerce and can further lead to other interrelated benefits of informational and strategic importance. Extant research on e-commerce and trade has documented innovative efforts adopted by quite a number of entrepreneurs in DCs. These efforts have been focused on exporting or selling their unique “cultural capital”; craft products, art, and festivals – for some countries this is paving the way for e-commerce in tourism (Wresch, 2003; Wood, 2004; Boateng and Hinson, 2007). These include (Ethiopia) and (Bangladesh), which market the concept of non-resident Ethiopians or Bangladesh buying gifts online (sheep, flowers and crafts) to be delivered to relatives or friends living at home (UNCTAD, 2001).Another related example in India is an online shop, India Shop, developed by 100 recent college graduates (40 percent being women) to market local clothing, craft, a nd jewellery products (Wood, 2004). With respect to “cultural capital” and other agricultural products there are diverse entrepreneurial opportunities in DCs, which can also generate employment opportunities and other income generating activities.
Some o f these “cultural capital” initiatives tend to be potential areas where women entrepreneurs may dominate as entrepreneurs or knowledgeable resources in decision-making processes of e-commerce. Women getting
