Investigating the effect of technology-based village development towards smart economy: An application of variance-based structural equation modeling

Abstract

Indonesia is a country dominated by rural areas. Addressing rural poverty is a priority of the Indonesian government work program and an effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the actual programs dealing with poverty is a digital village which is implemented in a smart village ecosystem. Since 2018, Indonesia has initiated various pilots of smart village projects. The success of a smart village is closely related to citizen science. The purpose of this research was to build a citizen science prospect model for a smart economy in a smart village ecosystem using Structural Equation Model – Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) approach. This study proposes a novelty of measuring villagers' readiness to build a smart economy in a smart village ecosystem based on the strength of community support. We propose an assessment of the prospect of developing a smart economy in a smart village through the citizen science level that integrates exogenous variables of community support for the environment, citizen character, empowerment, entrepreneurship, innovation, and the smart economy. The citizen science model towards a smart economy showed a high level of predictive relevance, which was 87,2%. The citizen science model towards a smart economy can also explain empirical data with a GoF value of 0,488. This research showed that the indicators of Information Communication Technology (ICT), ICT literacy, access to education and research and development (R & D) facilitation, motivation for smart villages, and innovation in villages were driven by family participation. The collaboration with the private sector, local government, and communities drive the village's smart economy. The SEM PLS approach has not been widely used in research on the smart village component, especially the relationship between citizen science and the smart economy. Therefore, this research can fill the gap in smart village research, which is still dominated by a descriptive approach.