Research on the impact of e-commerce platform’s AI resources on seller opportunism: a cultivational governance mechanism

Drawing on the wisdom of ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi, this paper aims to present a novel mechanism for governing opportunism, referred to as “cultivational governance.” By examining the role of artificial intelligence (AI) resources possessed by e-commerce platforms, the authors explore how these resources contribute to mitigating seller opportunism. The central hypothesis of this study posits that two distinct types of AI resources, namely, AI technology resources and AI human resources, serve as crucial factors in curbing seller opportunism. Furthermore, the authors propose that platform digital empowerment and value cocreation act as mediating variables linking AI resources to opportunism.

Based on the resource-based view and resource orchestration theory, the authors developed a framework and tested it using survey data from sellers. This framework encompasses five key variables: e-commerce platform’s AI technology resources, AI human resources, platform digital empowerment, value cocreation and seller opportunism. Regression analysis was used for data analysis.

The empirical results validate the effectiveness of cultivational governance mechanisms, as both AI resources effectively suppress seller opportunism through digital empowerment and value cocreation. Specifically, e-commerce platforms’ AI technology resources significantly promote value cocreation and platform digital empowerment, while AI human resources primarily contribute to platform digital empowerment. Although platform digital empowerment encourages value cocreation, its direct impact on reducing seller opportunism was not supported. Notably, value cocreation negatively affects seller opportunism.

The present research mainly contributes to the marketing channel governance literature by introducing a new approach to inhibit opportunism, namely, the cultivational governance mechanism.