Abstract:

Inclusive innovation has become a world topic ever since it was first put forward by the World Bank in 2007. Unlike the traditional innovation theory, the inclusive innovation insists taking the BOP(Bottom of Pyramid)as the main body of innovation. Taobao Village is such an inclusive innovation model under the era of Internet which makes it possible for a common villager to use the CIT (communication& information technology) to create value without any exclusive requirement. Until the end of 2017, 2,118 Taobao Villages were formed in China and the annual sales volume reached 120 billion RMB. What has the government done by using public policy or how to make the model to develop better by using public policy has attracted more and more attention．Based on the theory of inclusive innovation and the practice of Taobao Village development in China, while with the guiding of the theory of Industrial Cluster, this paper first set up a 4-dimension analysis framework to explore the government behavior by tracing its policy texts. The framework consists of the time when the policy being released, the policy themes, the department who releases the policy and the policy tools used in the policy, as shown in Figure 1. Next, by reading, tracing and selecting the website of national government departments whose businesses are relevant to the development of Taobao Village and some professional website on e-commerce, the paper collects 67 policy texts which were issued during the year of 2005 to 2016 as shown in Table 1. All the policy texts are coded according to the framework, as shown in Table 2. The study gets the following findings.First, from the view of the time dimension in the framework, the first national policy about e-commerce was issued much earlier than the appearance of the first Taobao Village in China. When the number of Taobao Village increased at low speed, few policies were published on it; While when it develops so fast and brought various problems, nearly 200 policy provisions were released to regulate it to grow in a healthy way. That means, in the development process of Taobao Village, the role of the government experienced such a change, that is from constructing the environment to limited action, and from limited action to active guidance. Second, from the view of the promulgator dimension in the framework, during the 12 years, 33 departments at national lever including the CCCPC, the State Council, the department of business affairs et al released 67 policies from their own function respectively. At the time when Taobao Village develops fast, different departments take close corporation to serve it. By using the bubble chart, the paper shows all the policy issuers′ behavior by describing its intervention time and intervention intensity in Rural E-commerce Industry, as shown in Figure 3.Third, from the view of the policy theme dimension in the framework, the paper finds that different policies push Taobao Village to develop from such 8 main aspects as raising the rural residents′ consciousness of e-commerce, constructing the infrastructure in rural areas, drawing up the on-line trade regulation, setting up the express delivery system, establishing the regional brands of native special products, motivating the e-business entities, providing the financial aid and offering other supporting or service. These are regarded as the 8 key elements for the growth of Taobao Village. Since different policy theme appears at different development stage of Taobao Village′s growth, the paper describes the policy theme′s evolution process by using a fishbone chart, as shown in Figure 4.Forth, from the view of the policy tools dimension in the framework, with the classification method of Rothwell & Zegveld about policy tools, the paper identifies the total 884 policy tools used in the 67 policies and encode them according to its category. It is found that during the 12 years, 42.8% policy tools are used for establishing environment, 19.3% tools are used for creating demand and the rest 37.6% are used for creating supplying ability. Anyway, since Taobao Village model has experienced 3 stages, at each stage policy tools are always used to establishing environment but not to intervene it directly, as shown in Table 4 and Figure 5.Taobao Village is a typical embodiment of inclusive innovation. This paper has given answers to two questions on its development.The first is “Is it necessary for local governments to offer helpto Taobao Village?” The answer is YES. Since the development of Taobao Village in China has been in the state of grass-roots barbaric growth for a long time, people usually neglect the government′s power in pushing its development. But by data analysis, the paper finds that the government plays an indispensable role in the growth process of Taobao Village and acts as promoter to supervisor from the beginning to the end. So, in the future, we suggest the local government give necessary support and assistance to cultivate and to develop Taobao Village with its “visible hands”. The second is “How does a local government offer help to Taobao Village?” The practice of national government departments give inspiration on the question. Maybe the answer lies in 3 aspects. The first is to follow the market rules. Taobao Village is the product of the development of market economy. The government should pay more attention to how to provide service and create healthy environment for its growth but not to interfere with it directly. The second is the polices should focus on guiding the gathering of key elements of Taobao Village. The paper identifies 8 main elements, which may the critical resource for the growth of a Taobao Village. The third is to strengthen cooperation among different departments. The experience of departments of the central government shows that the development of Taobao Village needs the joint promotion of business department, agricultural department, transportation department, legal department and some other departments, which is also a good experience for the local government to follow.
Keywords:

Key words: inclusive innovation, taobao village, industrial cluster, text analysis, government behavior