Mobile Payment in China: A Study from a Sociological Perspective

This study aims to analyse and clarify why mobile payments have been adopted in China at such a rapid pace. Unlike previous studies which focused on mobile payment functionality and the micro-level reasons for adoption, this study emphasized the macro-level and meso-level reasons with an emphasis on...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of communication inquiry Vol. 47; no. 3; pp. 222 - 248
Main Authors: Ye, WeiMing, Chen, Weirong, Fortunati, Leopoldina
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.07.2023
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Adoption of innovations
Development policy
Interpersonal relations
Payments
Social development
Social relations
Sociology
dematerialization of money
mobile payment
social relations
guanxi
China
financial regulatory policy
ISSN:0196-8599, 1552-4612
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study aims to analyse and clarify why mobile payments have been adopted in China at such a rapid pace. Unlike previous studies which focused on mobile payment functionality and the micro-level reasons for adoption, this study emphasized the macro-level and meso-level reasons with an emphasis on social relationships or guanxi to explain the widespread and rapid adoption in China of mobile payment. Initially mobile payment was widely dispersed by leveraging the trust existing in strong relationship ties (e.g. mobile ‘red packets’). In the second phase of mass adoption there was a shift toward relying on economic exchanges in the context of weak urban ties. Now in the third phase mobile payment seeks to abandon social relations altogether relying on technologies for direct human-to-machine interactions. The three successive phases show how the strong interactions between financial regulatory policy and mobile payment development have affected social relationships.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0196-8599
1552-4612
DOI:10.1177/01968599211052965