Research on Knowledge Payment Product Supply Chain Governance Based on Blockchain: An Evolutionary Game Model

ABSTRACT Blockchain provides a new opportunity to govern the dilemmas in the knowledge payment product supply chain. This paper introduces blockchain into the evolutionary game to explore the behavioral strategies of knowledge providers, platforms, and consumers and to analyze in depth the influence of initial willingness and blockchain‐related factors by the system dynamics. The analysis shows that (1) improving the tripartite initial willingness is conducive to accelerating the process of supply chain governance and making the system reach an ideal state: knowledge providers choose compliance creation, platforms adopt blockchain, and consumers buy authorized product; (2) there are specific thresholds for the blockchain adoption cost and the premium of product brought by blockchain, only when the cost and premium are lower than the thresholds, the system evolves towards the ideal state; (3) when blockchain is adopted, it can effectively inhibit knowledge providers' illegal creation behavior and consumers' piracy behavior by increasing the punishments of platforms on knowledge providers and consumers. The results provide guidance to implement effective governance and the orderly development of knowledge payment industry.