Rural Enterprise as an Agent for Technology Development and Facilitation in the Digital Economy

This paper outlines recent developments in the Scaling the Rural Enterprise (SRE) research project – an interdisciplinary project that combines the expertise of social scientists, computer scientists and software developers, in order to inform the development and design of digital technologies in a rural context. The paper provides a brief overview of the research undertaken. It then highlights the outcomes from three stages of the work. Initially, it undertakes a review of associated literature and discusses issues of definition in relation to rural enterprises in the UK. Following this we present the insights from rural business advisers on the current state of use of digital technologies in these organisations. This then leads to work that analyses community- based enterprises as agents of economic change and gatekeepers to the introduction of digital technology solutions. The paper concludes by highlighting some implications for the design of digital tools and services