Digital social innovations in rural areas – process tracing and mapping critical junctures
通过四个案例的定性比较分析，追踪农村数字化过程，识别出四个关键节点，为农村数字社会创新提供实践指导，适合区域发展、数字治理研究者阅读。
In recent years, digitalisation projects have helped rural areas to bridge some of the urban-rural disparities, such as accessibility issues as well as the digital literacy divide. To further exploit the potential of digitalisation for rural areas, we aim to understand the implementation of digitalisation processes and their conceptual alignment with Digital Social Innovation (DSI). As an example of Neo-Endogenous Regional Development (NERD) approaches, this perspective provides rich insights into small-scale rural adaptation in a rapidly digitising world. DSI encompasses a strong process perspective, but lacks a broader empirical application. It is a multifaceted concept that includes bottom-up participation, learning and empowerment. To operationalise the process perspective within DSI, we apply a process tracing approach within a qualitative comparative analysis of four case studies. Based on schematic mappings, we conclude with four critical junctures that provide insights for rural DSI. First, innovation can be triggered both endogenously and exogenously, with different implications for path dependencies. Second, participatory processes are crucial for digital innovation in rural communities. Third, hybridisation as an intermediate step can help to reduce the digital divide. Finally, successful institutionalisation benefits from collaborative learning. These findings outline how successful digital social innovation generates impacts beyond the project scope. • We provide a visualisation approach to understand critical junctures in rural digitalisation. • Digitalisation helps bridging the rural-urban digital divide concerning literacy and habits. • Community involvement is essential for embedding rural digital innovation socially. • Combining digital and non-digital tools lowers thresholds in rural digitalisation. • Institutionalisation benefits from collective learning – a key element in DSI.