The orchestrating role of platform enterprises in digital inclusion: A network game perspective from industrial clusters

The digital transformation of industrial clusters, while enhancing productivity, has exacerbated the corporate digital divide, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Digital inclusion, which aims to bridge this divide, exhibits public-good attributes and positive externalities, yet its co-construction is often hindered by the “Olson’s dilemma” arising from the conflict between individual and collective rationality. Platform enterprises, occupying the “bridging point” of structural holes within clusters, are posited to act as opinion leaders capable of orchestrating ecosystem co-creation. Through a theoretical simulation approach, there employs a “small-world + opinion leader” complex network framework to model the evolutionary dynamics of digital inclusion ecosystem co-construction. Integrating a public goods game model with a Fermi learning algorithm enhanced by a random surfer mechanism, we simulate strategic interactions among cluster firms under controlled parameter conditions. Monte Carlo simulations reveal a distinct threshold effect under simulated conditions: cooperation emerges sustainably only when the investment return coefficient surpasses the critical value defined by the number of game participants. Furthermore, the platform’s connection ratio and strategic commitment emerge as pivotal factors; maintaining an investment strategy significantly promotes cooperation, whereas free-riding by the platform exerts a strong negative demonstration effect. While traditional platform governance tools like rewards and punishments can mitigate cooperation decay, they cannot reverse collective free-riding trends in our model. Crucially, a binding collective agreement, featuring pre-commitment of costs and redistribution of unused funds, emerges as the most effective mechanism for resolving the cooperation dilemma within the simulation. These theoretically derived findings offer insights for policymakers, platform enterprises, and SMEs in fostering collaborative and inclusive digital ecosystems within industrial clusters, though empirical validation remains necessary.