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Nowadays, the construction of lifelong education system has become the common trend of educational development in many countries. In China, credit accumulation and transfer as one of the effective measures to promote the lifelong education system was proposed in the National Medium and Long-term Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010 – 2020). It certainly poses a new opportunity and challenge to open universities in China, most of which are in transition from TV and radio universities and expected to play more important roles in the construction of lifelong education system in China. The paper presents the initial research and practice of Shanghai Academic Credit Transfer and Accumulation Bank for Lifelong Education (SHCB), which is led by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and operated by Shanghai Open University as one of the initiatives of open universities in China since 2010. Focusing on continuing education for Shanghai citizens and cooperating with other universities and related institutions, SHCB has been established with the organisational structure, accreditation criteria for credits, credit accumulation and transfer system, learners' learning portfolios, technology service platform, and the detailed operating mode. By now, accreditation criteria of learner's credits of 166 courses and 139 non-degree certificates, and recognition of 541 non-degree certificates and 1549 leisure courses have been completed. SHCB has been open to the public from 24 July, 2002 to promote the exchange and transfer among the academic education, even between academic education and non-academic education, and ultimately promote the construction of the lifelong education system in Shanghai.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to illustrate how network governance based on banks’ e-commerce platform reduces loan risks and mitigates credit rationing in supply chain financing (SCF).

The authors conceptualize network governance in terms of authority structure and interorganizational mechanism dimensions, and derive the model of its determinants through arguments drawn from the existing literature. Structural equation modeling is employed to test the theoretical model on data collected from a sample of 271 independent supply chain trading partners in rural China.

The findings indicate that network governance based on banks’ e-commerce platform could integrate the operations and finances in supply chain management to solve the problems of information asymmetry, costly monitoring, insufficient qualified collaterals and mitigate farmers’ credit rationing. The collaborative credit-granting mechanism and collaborative debt enforcement mechanism formed by the authority structure and interorganizational mechanisms are the key factors to realize the complete compatibility of incentives. The bank e-commerce platform can provide a foundation for the authority structure and interorganizational mechanisms to enhance the predictability of applicants’ transaction and then safeguard the financial exchanges in supply chain.

The research results indicate that it is important to support farmers to establish long-term transaction relationships with leading enterprises through organizational innovation in the development of agricultural industrialization and build a visualization platform for SCF through technological innovation.

This paper contributes to the limited knowledge about network governance mechanisms in SCF by illustrating the model of network governance based on banks’ e-commerce platform and its determinants.