As the global economy continues to shift towards digitalisation, digital marketplaces have become commonplace for both buyers and sellers to transact. However, in rural regions, particularly in developing countries, rural micro-entrepreneurs are faced with the realities of an increasingly digitalised market and target customers under the backdrop of a rapidly digitising economy.

At the same time, digital innovation, particularly e-commerce platforms have not conventionally included rural micro-entrepreneurs as target users, nor as design participants, further exacerbating existing digital divides. Aligning with the methodological pluralism advocated in critical realism, this PhD utilised a range of research methods to understand the dynamics of rural micro-entrepreneurs’ work in Sarawak, their everyday engagement and disengagement with digital marketplaces, and their reimagination of the technology when co-designed from their epistemologies.

Building on previous work in rural entrepreneurship, platform studies and human-computer interaction, this research contributes new empirical findings and theorising in digital marketplace design for micro-entrepreneurs in rural Sarawak. The findings of this thesis reframe rural micro-entrepreneurship within the digital entrepreneurship discourse, challenging digital marketplace design in their mismatch with local realities, and provide an explanatory account of why disengagement persists among rural micro-entrepreneurs with digital marketplace platforms.

Research Questions:

RQ1: What does rural micro-entrepreneurship look like in rural Sarawak? 

RQ2: How can digital marketplace platforms be reimagined with rural micro-entrepreneurs to more effectively reflect and support locally situated economic and social practices?

RQ3: Why do rural micro-entrepreneurs in Sarawak engage or disengage from conventional digital marketplace platforms?