Cross-sectional survey reveals intermediary support boosts e-commerce performance among rural farmers, indicating that local digital readiness enhances market success.
Key Points
To examine how intermediary support arrangements shape farmers' post-access e-commerce performance across different organizational configurations, digital resource environments, and transaction barriers.
Analyzed cross-sectional data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalisation Survey.
Employed propensity-score-weighted regressions to evaluate the association between intermediary support arrangements and e-commerce performance.
Conducted mediation analyses to test whether internal and external digital transaction barriers account for the observed relationships.
Intermediary support arrangement participation is positively associated with farmers' e-commerce performance, with stronger effects observed in single-actor and market-oriented configurations.
The positive relationship between intermediary support and performance strengthens under higher individual digital readiness and in more developed village digital environments.
Internal and external digital transaction barriers partially mediate the relationship between intermediary support and realised e-commerce performance.