Food manufacturer willingness to employ blockchain technology system under the social Co-governance framework: China's situation

The blockchain technology system has gradually come to be employed in the food supply chain system, and it has emerged that the system offers the unique function of effectively curbing counterfeiting by food manufacturers. Unlike previous research on adoption by enterprises of new technology, this paper probes into the specific evolutionary routes of game subjects from the perspective of the precondition for enterprises' willingness to employ blockchain technology on the basis of China's social co-governance framework and by establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of food manufacturer, government and consumer. The study then tests and verifies the stability conditions of equilibrium points and the relationship between these equilibrium points and the social co-governance level through numerical simulation analysis. On the above basis, the expected market proceeds of food producers employing blockchain technology and the influence of government and consumer behavior on enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy and the level of social co-governance are analyzed. The results show that every subject selects their own behavior strategy on the basis of the balance of their respective interests, and the final stability condition of the system is independent of their initial intentions. Rather, the expected sales volume of foods employing blockchain technology, governmental behavior (e.g., supervision, casual inspection, economic punishment, and fiscal subsidies), and complaints made by consumers constitute the main factors that influence food enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy. The level of social co-governance and the behavior of both government and consumers will ultimately be accomplished by influencing enterprises' expected economic returns, and the selection of an enterprise behavior strategy internally depends on the expected economic returns from producing foods employing blockchain technology. Therefore, this paper makes relevant proposals in an attempt to assist the Chinese government to better promote and popularize the blockchain technology system among food manufacturing enterprises.