Adopting Live-Streaming Commerce: A Stage-Contingent Perspective from the Technology-Organization-Environment Framework in Chinese Firms

Abstract Live-streaming commerce (LSC) has spread quickly through Chinese retail, but evidence on what accompanies its adoption by firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), remains scattered across studies that rarely speak to one another. Which firm-level capabilities, which resource positions, and which forms of institutional pressure travel together with adoption? And do these relationships shift as firms age? We combine the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework with organizational lifecycle theory and estimate an LSC adoption model in which the associations are allowed to vary by stage. The data come from a cross-sectional survey of 718 Chinese firms conducted in 2023; 580 respondents (80.8%) self-identified as medium-sized or small firms, and self-reported size was included as a control. We apply binary logistic regression. In the pooled sample, adoption is positively associated with external capital receipt (OR = 1.492), perceived industry prevalence (OR = 1.269), and the presence of a dedicated in-house team (OR = 2.305). The stage-differentiated estimates are less uniform. Among firms operating for 3 to 10 years, all three factors operate jointly and model fit peaks (Nagelkerke R² = 0.110). Among firms operating for under 3 years, only the team-based association is substantial. Among firms operating for over 10 years, perceived industry prevalence and a weakened team-based association are linked to adoption; external capital receipt is not. A probit estimator and a lower-registered-capital subsample (n = 465) give directionally consistent results. Two contributions follow. The dedicated in-house team emerges as the strongest organizational correlate of adoption, and institutional prevalence and resource slack relate to adoption in stage-contingent rather than uniform ways. For managers, the practical message is that digital adoption strategies should be calibrated to lifecycle position: capability building early on, joint attention to financing, peer norms, and team capacity during growth, and legitimacy-oriented positioning in maturity.