Innovative Financial Approach for Agricultural Sustainability: A Case Study of Alibaba

TLDR

Sustainability and agricultural finance are two important issues attracting attention from industry and academia. The study investigates Alibaba Group’s agricultural finance initiatives through a case study and proposes a reference framework to demonstrate how such practices support sustainability. The authors use a case‑study approach, propose a reference framework, and analyze the moderating effects of IT support, financial attractiveness, and external cooperation. The study finds that advanced IT support and financial attractiveness are essential enablers, while collaboration with other entities is necessary for adopting agricultural supply chain finance.

Abstract

Sustainability and agricultural finance are two important issues attracting attention from industry and academia. This research adopts an in-depth case study methodology to investigate the agricultural finance initiatives of Alibaba Group, and explores how the agricultural finance practices of an e-commerce platform facilitate its sustainability goal. A reference framework is proposed to prove the adoption of agricultural finance. The influence of three moderating variables, namely, IT support, financial attractiveness, and cooperation with other entities, is analyzed. We find that advanced IT support and financial attractiveness are two indispensable enablers for agricultural finance initiatives, and collaboration with other entities is necessary in adopting agricultural supply chain finance.