社区电商团购“团长”在居家养老中的角色与功能研究——基于江苏省A市X电商平台自提点的组织民族志调查

The Role and Function of Community E-Commerce Group Buying “Leaders” in Home-Based Elderly Care—An Organizational Ethnography Study Based on Pick-Up Points of Platform X in City A, Jiangsu Province

摘要: 本文基于组织民族志方法，通过对江苏省A市一位社区团购团长在三个典型社区(城市老旧小区、新建安置房小区、城郊村改居社区)为期两个月的深度参与观察，系统考察了其在居家养老服务体系中的独特角色与功能生成机制。研究发现，团长依托社区电商平台，通过数字赋能、社群运营与资源整合，构建了异质性连接网络，一定程度上填补了数字化时代老年群体的“服务真空”。其在实践中同时承担工具性、情感性与信息性支持，呈现出角色拓展与功能融合的平台化服务特征。尤为重要的是，研究发现基于电商交易的商业关系可通过高频互动实现“弱关系强化”，并经由“称谓转变”等符号标志转化为具有照护特质的强关系，揭示了平台经济情境下市场关系向社会关系转化的独特路径。然而，该模式存在结构性局限：服务供给受个体能力约束、支持质量缺乏标准化保障、资源协调具有偶发性。案例表明当团长面临自身家庭照护需求时，其基于电商平台的服务供给会出现显著中断。研究从理论层面拓展了非正式照护在电子商务语境下的理论内涵，揭示了市场机制与数字平台交互作用下的养老服务供给新形态；实践层面为构建电商赋能、多元协同的社区养老服务体系提供了实证依据。

Abstract: Based on organizational ethnography, this study systematically examines the unique role and functional generation mechanism of a community group-buying leader within the home-based elderly care system through two months of in-depth participatory observation across three typical communities (an old urban residential area, a newly built resettlement housing community, and a suburban village-turned-residential community) in City A, Jiangsu Province. The study finds that, leveraging the community e-commerce platform, the leader constructs a heterogeneous connectivity network through digital empowerment, community operation, and resource integration, to some extent, mitigates the precarious position of elderly populations resulting from the “service gap” in the digital age. In practice, the leader simultaneously provides instrumental, emotional, and informational support, demonstrating role expansion and functional integration characterized by platform-based service features. Notably, the research reveals that commercial relationships rooted in e-commerce transactions can undergo a transition from weak to strong ties through high-frequency interactions, symbolized by markers such as “changes in forms of address”, thereby transforming into strong relationships with care attributes. This highlights a unique pathway through which market relationships evolve into social relationships within the platform economy context. However, this model exhibits structural limitations: service provision is constrained by individual capabilities, support quality lacks standardization, and resource coordination remains occasional. Case evidence shows that when the leader faces personal family care needs, their platform-based service provision is significantly disrupted. Theoretically, this research expands the conceptual understanding of informal care within the e-commerce context, revealing a new form of elderly care supply resulting from the interaction between market mechanisms and digital platforms. Practically, it provides empirical evidence for constructing an e-commerce-empowered, multi-stakeholder, and collaborative community-based elderly care system.