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The research examines the simultaneous processes of value co-creation and value co-destruction in the implementation of a mobile banking application in rural Colombia. Rural communities experience digital and financial deficits and often become the object of technology-based initiatives. In the town, vulnerable female heads of household received a government subsidy through a mobile app, becoming an experimental group for this government–private bank collaboration. In an effort to create the first cashless society in Colombia, the bank engaged the entire town and local government to create a service ecosystem, constituted by operant resources.

This study uses a qualitative, ethnographic approach to investigate the experiences of stakeholders in engaging with a mobile banking app. The empirical data is drawn from 34 interviews, representing different layers of this service ecosystem. The study identified and analysed actor engagement behaviours that occurred in the micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-layers of this ecosystem that shaped the perception and usage of mobile payments and digital money for rural consumers.

The study found that simultaneous manifestations of the co-creation and co-destruction of value present in different layers ultimately diminished the value proposition for this digital money system. We shed light on how actor engagement transitions across different layers of the ecosystem and that negative interactions in the meta-layer of the ecosystem can affect perceptions of value in the micro-layer.

This study has contributed to the service literature by integrating epistemological cultural theory into value co-creation and co-destruction construct. In doing so, we provide a broader context for understanding how actor engagement can negatively impact on the value creation process and offer a meaningful contribution to the development of midrange theory of the value creation process.

This research aims to investigate the impact of the collaborative governance mechanism on the implementation of rural governance information systems in developing countries. By integrating institutional logic theory, affordance theory and social identity theory, the authors propose modeling grassroots officials' affordance perception process and exploring the importance of multi-identities’ information technology (IT) goals in affordance perception.

Through an exploratory case study, the authors identified three affordances of rural governance information systems and investigated the mechanisms influencing the perception of these affordances among grassroots officials. Next, the authors established a research model and collected 490 valid questionnaires from grassroots officials in China and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The authors' study challenges previous assumptions by integrating institutional logic, affordance and social identity theories. The authors establish a perceived affordance path for rural governance information systems, recognize substitute effects among technological affordances and extend the theory to explain social factors influencing IT perception. The authors' findings suggest providing technical training for grassroots officials to enhance IT capabilities, and governments should prioritize essential functionalities in rural governance information systems to optimize resources. Training on collaborative governance mechanisms can improve IT affordance perception, enhancing digital platform utilization in governance processes.

The study was conducted mainly in China, and therefore, the findings may not be universal to other developing countries. Researchers are therefore encouraged to test the proposal in locations with different rural cultures.

The paper includes implications for the development of IT perception in rural governance, the development of affordance perception theory and studying the relationship between IT goals and affordance perception.

Overall, this paper addresses the need to understand how grassroots officials perceive IT affordances in rural governance and study the relationship between multi-identities’ goals and affordance perception.