In the new era driven by the digital economy, business process digitalization has become an important starting point for promoting the process of digital transformation, and it is crucial for accelerating the cultivation of new forms of high quality productive forces and driving high-quality economic development. Value co-creation is the internal logic behind the effective operation of digital platforms, yet existing research has not fully revealed the growth path of value co-creation within digital platforms that drive the business process digitalization of manufacturing SMEs. Value co-creation is a resource interaction process of mutualism and symbiosis among multiple entities in the platform ecology, which often requires the synergistic effect of internal and external contextual factors. Therefore, it is necessary to deeply explore the complex mechanism of value co-creation within digital platforms influencing business process digitalization. Addressing the aforementioned research gaps, this study introduces the mediating role of digital strategy renewal and the moderating effect of digital platform resilience, to reveal the internal mechanism of value co-creation affecting business process digitalization on the digital platform.
This study selects manufacturing SMEs in Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang of China, as the survey respondents, collects data through questionnaires by online and offline methods, and completes the distribution of questionnaires through alumni, acquaintances, and other means, with 247 samples from manufacturing SMEs finally obtained. The measurement indicators for the questionnaire survey are modified from well-established scales at home and abroad. In addition, this study introduces four control variables, namely, the number of years since the establishment of the company, company size, market volatility, and technological volatility to exclude the potential influence of related variables on the research results. The study verifies the hypothesis by constructing a multiple linear regression model. In order to further verify the hypothesis, the Bootstrap test is made to examine the chain mediating role of environmental adaptive learning and digital technology embedding.
The results show that value co-creation within the digital platform has a significant positive impact on the business process digitalization of manufacturing SMEs. Meanwhile, environmental adaptive learning and digital technology embedding play a partial mediating role and a chain mediating role between value co-creation and business process digitalization. In addition, the connectivity resilience of digital platform could strengthen the mediating role of environmental adaptive learning and digital technology embedding, and the recovery resilience of digital platform could enhance the mediating effect of digital technology embedding. However, the moderating effect of recovery resilience on the mediating role of environmental adaptive learning has not been verified. This study not only expands the research results of value co-creation from the perspective of digital platform, but also opens the 'black box' of the path for value co-creation affecting business process digitalization from the perspective of digital strategy renewal. Firstly,from the perspective of manufacturing SMEs, this study reveals the internal mechanism of value co-creation affecting business process digitalization and deepens the cross-research of value co-creation and business process digitalization. Secondly, the findings enrich the research on digital strategy renewal by identifying the mediating role of digital strategy renewal in the mechanism between value co-creation and business process digitalization , making a positive response to the call for the exploration of ‘how the digital platform enables the digital transformation of enterprises'. Finally, by verifying the moderating effect of digital platform resilience, this paper expands the microscopic mechanism of value co-creation driving business process digitalization. What's more, this study provides practical guidance for enterprises to leverage the enabling of digital platform to facilitate digital transformation and value creation. First, enterprises should actively form or join digital platforms that focus on mutual co-creation and collaboration among partners to help digitize processes within the organization. Second, SMEs can achieve process digitalization goals by carrying out digital strategy renewal. Third, SMEs should pay attention to the positive role of the resilience of digital platforms in the process of value co-creation so as to promote the realization of process digitalization within the organization.