Analysis of the Transaction Behavior of Live Broadcasters with Goods Based on the Multi-Stage Game under Dynamic Credit Index
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article entitled “Analysis of the transaction behavior of live broadcasters with goods based on the multi-stage game under dynamic credit index” is an interesting and potentially valuable behavioral study. It adds to the literature on modeling human performance in the domain of decision-making. However, before the study is considered for publication, considerable work needs to be done on the format in which information is presented. Additional information also needs to be provided for how the testing of the authors’ proposed model was performed.
The information in the abstract needs to be organized more logically. Sentences may benefit from being shorter. The abstract appears cryptic and difficult to read in its current format, thereby preventing the article from engaging a broader readership.
The introduction starts with a date associated with policy changes, but the location of the changes (i.e., China) is not mentioned. Key terms are not defined until later. It may be a good idea to introduce the research questions and hypotheses earlier. Most importantly, very little is said about the literature on human decision-making under different constraints.
The testing of each hypothesis needs to be contextualized. Namely, the authors may want to describe more clearly how their predictions were tested. What is the sample of participants/subjects whose behavior is being assessed? What is the sample size? How was sampling performed? The authors mention that they constructed “a multi-stage game model of integrity trading with the behavioral strategies of three parties: the live streaming platform, the anchor, and the brand.”. What is the operational definition of each party?
Data analyses require a paragraph that briefly summarizes the steps taken and their rationale.
Before the sections devoted to “conclusion and insights”, the authors may consider a discussion section in which they summarize the key results of their study. The limitations of the study also need to be more thoroughly explored. For instance, to what extent do they apply to other cultural contexts? How exactly does governance “effectively constrain the behavior of transaction subjects”? Three factors are mentioned: (1) the internal governance of live broadcasting platforms, (2) the internal punishment factor based on dynamic credit index changes, and (3) the weight of trust-breaking cost sharing. Are these factors equally important or differentially important? Is there an interaction between/among any of these factors that shape effectiveness?
In my modest opinion, the authors’ writing needs to be revised to create shorter sentences and more transparent descriptions of key concepts and choices of data processing. Revising the text will improve readability and broaden the potential readership of the article.
Author Response
Dear expert:
Hello, first of all, thank you very much for your rigorous and meticulous review, and for your valuable guidance to further improve the research results of the research group. The research group made improvements in time based on expert opinions. The specific reply is as follows：
Expert Opinion 1：The article entitled “Analysis of the transaction behavior of live broadcasters with goods based on the multi-stage game under dynamic credit index” is an interesting and potentially valuable behavioral study. It adds to the literature on modeling human performance in the domain of decision-making. However, before the study is considered for publication, considerable work needs to be done on the format in which information is presented. Additional information also needs to be provided for how the testing of the authors’ proposed model was performed.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review, and provided very valuable guidance for the further improvement of this article. The research team improved it in time according to the experts' opinions. According to expert opinions, the overall language logic and format of the article have been modified, and the text has been revised and polished. For details on the revisions, see the text of the article. In addition, the answer to the question of adding model testing raised by experts is as follows: First of all, we fully considered the influencing factors of the behavior of each subject in the model assumption; Secondly, the main verification process of the model in this paper is to perform deductive logic calculation on the income matrix of the subject in the multi-stage game process, and to compare, analyze and demonstrate the derivation results of the deductive logic; Third, in order to further verify the objectivity and effectiveness of theoretical calculations, taking the current hot issues as the specific practice research object, real case analysis is added in the part of mechanism operation simulation and effectiveness analysis in Chapter 5, which verifies the relationship between theoretical model research and specific practice. For specific revisions, please see Sections 5.4 and 5.5.
Expert Opinion 2：The information in the abstract needs to be organized more logically. Sentences may benefit from being shorter. The abstract appears cryptic and difficult to read in its current format, thereby preventing the article from engaging a broader readership.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to the opinions of experts, the format and logic of the abstract of the article have been reorganized. For details on the revisions, please see the Abstract section.
Expert Opinion 3：The introduction starts with a date associated with policy changes, but the location of the changes (i.e., China) is not mentioned. Key terms are not defined until later. It may be a good idea to introduce the research questions and hypotheses earlier. Most importantly, very little is said about the literature on human decision-making under different constraints.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to the opinions of experts, First, the introduction of the article is revised to explain the location of the policy change mentioned in the article. And reorganize the existing literature results, simplify the text, and highlight the direction, problems and innovations that this paper wants to study in the introduction part; Secondly, based on the research questions in this paper, it is necessary to define and analyze the concepts of the relationship between the behaviors of the subjects, the dynamic credit index, transaction costs and allocation strategies in more detail. The assumptions in this paper mostly involve the specific parameters of the model. In order to ensure the fluency and consistency of the research paper, the hypothesis is placed in Chapter 4 of the paper, which can effectively connect the above problem sorting and modeling calculation. In addition, based on expert opinions, in order to better support the research objectives of this paper, the research team added cutting-edge research results in the field of human decision-making under different constraints. For example, the article《Livestream e-commerce in a platform supply chain: A product-fit uncertainty reduction perspective》 published by Cui Xuqing in《International Journal of Production Economics》Volume 258, 2023、Melda Hasiloglu's article《An analysis of price, service and commission rate decisions in online sales made through E-commerce platforms》 published in《Computers & Industrial Engineering》Volume 162, 2021, most of this research focuses on the impact of different factors such as pricing and service levels in the e-commerce supply chain on the decision-making of platforms and sellers, which has laid a good theoretical foundation for the assumptions and parameter settings of the model in this paper. However, as a way of information dissemination and product marketing, live e-commerce still needs in-depth research by scholars at home and abroad. Most of the current research results focus on the relevant supply chain decision-making issues，the introduction of the concept of credit index in the field of finance and the establishment of a live broadcast e-commerce credit transaction mechanism are preliminary explorations. For details on the revisions, please see the Introduction section.
Expert Opinion 4：The testing of each hypothesis needs to be contextualized. Namely, the authors may want to describe more clearly how their predictions were tested. What is the sample of participants/subjects whose behavior is being assessed? What is the sample size? How was sampling performed? The authors mention that they constructed “a multi-stage game model of integrity trading with the behavioral strategies of three parties: the live streaming platform, the anchor, and the brand.”. What is the operational definition of each party?
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to expert opinion, answer as follows: The relevant assumptions in this article are based on the existing theoretical research results of live e-commerce and other industries, and have a relatively sufficient theoretical basis. For example, the main behavior strategy and income impact factors in the assumptions are based on the article《Evolutionary game simulation of tripartite strategy in e-commerce live streaming under platform regulation》 published by Li Chunfa in《Complex Systems and Complexity Science》Issue 1, 2022，the behavior strategy of the live broadcast platform is described as {active supervision, negative supervision}, and the behavior strategy of the anchor and the brand side is { integrity transaction, dishonest transaction}，set the main body transaction income increase coefficient , loss coefficient ；Parameters such as the composition of main body income are based on the article《Research on user's honest-trading mechanism under crowdsourcing platform》published by Le Chengyi in《Management Review》Issue12, 2019, and《Incentive mechanism for building trust in online market》published by Zhang E in《Journal of Management Sciences in China》Issue1, 2007, set the income of the anchor and the brand as , and set the relevant parameters of the appeal, punishment, and compensation mechanisms; Dynamic margin parameter setting refers to the article 《Design and implement of dynamic trading security deposit in reputation incentive mechanism for building trust in online trading market》published by Sun Baowen in《Management Review》Issue 6, 2014;For the cost parameters of dishonest transactions, refer to the article《Research on monopolist on the strategy of fake quality information considering the cost of extra marketing and punishment》published by Zhou Xiongwei in《Chinese Journal of Management Science》Issue 9, 2022 and Wu Jianjun's article《Analysis of corporate credit risk based on transaction costs》 in《Friends of Accounting》Issue 6, 2010, set the breach of trust marketing costs and breach of trust transaction dispute costs；The setting of platform regulatory cost parameters refers to the article《Live +" era of e-commerce live standardization of governance》published by Mei Ao in《E-Government》Issue 3, 2021；The setting of relevant parameters of external supervision refers to the article《Research on dynamic evolutionary game of platform e-commerce credit supervision from the perspective of government governance》published by Wang Xuhui in《Chinese Journal of Management Science》Issue 12, 2021. By referring to and citing the theoretical results of the above-mentioned literature, and combining the actual situation of the research problem in this paper, the assumptions and parameters in this paper are set.
Secondly, in the part of mechanism operation simulation and effectiveness analysis in Chapter 5 of the article, the hypothesis is verified by numerical simulation. By referring to the article 《Evolutionary game simulation of tripartite strategy in e-commerce live streaming under platform regulation》published by Li Chunfa in《Complex Systems and Complexity Science》Issue 1, 2022 and《Research on user's honest-trading mechanism under crowdsourcing platform》published by Le Chengyi in《Management Review》Issue 12, 2019，and based on the construction of the integrity system of China's live streaming industry and the requirements for regulatory standardization, the hypothetical parameters are explained and assigned, and the mechanism operation simulation is carried out to verify the validity of the dynamic credit index mechanism model for live streaming transactions.
Expert Opinion 5：Data analyses require a paragraph that briefly summarizes the steps taken and their rationale.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to expert opinion, a brief description of the steps and principles of data analysis was added in Section 4.5. The specific changes are as follows：Based on the above analysis of the single-stage game matrix under the dynamic credit index mechanism, according to the research results of《Research on user's honest-trading mechanism under crowdsourcing platform》published by Le Chengyi in《Management Review》and《Incentive mechanism for building trust in online market》published by Zhang E in《Journal of Management Sciences in China》on the solution method of multi-stage game analysis, this paper analyzes the multi-stage game under the dynamic credit index mechanism as follows: First, in a single-stage game, Comparative analysis of the income difference of different trading strategies of the trading subject with or without the dynamic credit index mechanism, It forms the basis of the multi-stage game analysis in this paper; Then, based on the analysis results of the above stages, by comparing the differences in returns of game subjects under different strategy choices of the other two subjects, the critical threshold points of returns of subjects dumping to choose different trading strategies are obtained by calculation, and analyzing the mechanism of why subjects choose different trading strategies under the dynamic credit index mechanism; Finally, based on the analysis of the first two steps , Based on the premise that the subject can obtain greater returns in long-term multiple transactions under the dynamic credit mechanism, exploring the differences in benefits and decision orientation of decision makers under the influence of strategies such as grievance compensation，and the conditions for the stable operation of the dynamic credit index mechanism. For details of the revisions, please see Section 4.5 of the article.
Expert Opinion 6：Before the sections devoted to “conclusion and insights”, the authors may consider a discussion section in which they summarize the key results of their study. The limitations of the study also need to be more thoroughly explored. For instance, to what extent do they apply to other cultural contexts? How exactly does governance “effectively constrain the behavior of transaction subjects”? Three factors are mentioned: (1) the internal governance of live broadcasting platforms, (2) the internal punishment factor based on dynamic credit index changes, and (3) the weight of trust-breaking cost sharing. Are these factors equally important or differentially important? Is there an interaction between/among any of these factors that shape effectiveness?
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to the opinions of experts, the structure of the article is adjusted, and the summary of the main research results, the limitations of this study and the discussion of future directions are placed before the general conclusion. For details of the revisions, please see Chapter 6 of the article for details.And explain the expert's question as follows: The dynamic credit index set in this article is negatively correlated with the punishment factor of the platform’s internal governance and the weight of the cost of untrustworthy. The larger the dynamic credit index, the smaller the punishment factor, and the smaller the weight of untrustworthy cost allocation. These parameters are equally important and jointly affect the income of participating subject. This requires the subject of live streaming to continue to choose an honest trading strategy in the transaction in order to obtain the maximum benefit in the subsequent transaction, so it can effectively restrain the behavior of the transaction subject.
Reviewer 2 Report
First, I would like to congratulate authors for the current paper.
Ignoring the external regulatory governance under the platform's corporate attributes can easily lead to conspiracy and trust-breaking of the main subjects of live streaming with goods.
In this regard, based on the perspective of internal supervision and governance, on the basis of analyzing the cooperation and restraint relationship between the three parties and the principal-agent relationship between the anchor and the brand party, this paper has defined the dynamic credit index of the three parties, constructs the multi-stage game model of good faith transaction for the tripartite behavior strategy of live broadcasting platform, anchors and brands, and establishes the dynamic credit index mechanism.
To perform this study, several hypothesis and steps were defined based on a model that allowed to achieve main conclusions.
Finally, it is important to stress that the paper is supported by several important and actual authors.
We would advise authors to read and make some minor corrections to the text. It would also be interesting to create a managerial strategy that was achieved with this research
Author Response
Dear expert:
Hello, first of all, thank you very much for your rigorous and meticulous review, and for your valuable guidance to further improve the research results of the research group. The research group made improvements in time based on expert opinions. The specific reply is as follows：
Expert Opinion ：We would advise authors to read and make some minor corrections to the text. It would also be interesting to create a managerial strategy that was achieved with this research.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review, and the valuable guidance provided by the research group for further improvement of the research results. The research team made improvements in time according to the experts' opinions. The text of the article has been reorganized and revised. For details on the revisions, please see the text of the article.
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for this interesting research. This study aims to identify the enterprise attributes of the live streaming platform under the perspective of internal regulatory governance, and construct a multi-stage game model of integrity trading with the behavioral strategies. Hereby are some comments that may help you improve on it:
1) Introduction
Overall, the introduction section is ok. Nevertheless, you should put additional focus in what is the main gap to be fulfilled by your study and on a clear description of what is the study’s objective. I would suggest that the introduction be shortened to more succinctly present the research gaps, and research purpose or question.
2) Conclusions and Implications
This paper provided a dynamic credit index mechanism in order to provide a feasible reference of governance mechanism for the live-streaming bandwagon industry. Accordingly, I recommended to emphasize what the previous studies could not identify but this paper did. Limitations of the study and the future directions should also be discussed.
3) Format and grammar
Regarding format, the text and figures should be reviewed again and fine-tuned according to the format required by this journal. Also, check the English grammar and spelling of the entire paper.
I hope that these notes are helpful in reviewing your article.
Author Response
Dear expert:
Hello, first of all, thank you very much for your rigorous and meticulous review, and for your valuable guidance to further improve the research results of the research group. The research group made improvements in time based on expert opinions. The specific reply is as follows：
Expert Opinion 1：Overall, the introduction section is ok. Nevertheless, you should put additional focus in what is the main gap to be fulfilled by your study and on a clear description of what is the study’s objective. I would suggest that the introduction be shortened to more succinctly present the research gaps, and research purpose or question.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review, and provided very valuable guidance for the further improvement of this article. The research team improved it in time according to the experts' opinions. According to expert opinions, Revise and adjust the introduction part, reorganize the literature review part, and more concisely highlight the gaps that this article wants to fill and the research purpose. For details on the revisions, please see the text of the article.
Expert Opinion 2：This paper provided a dynamic credit index mechanism in order to provide a feasible reference of governance mechanism for the live-streaming bandwagon industry. Accordingly, I recommended to emphasize what the previous studies could not identify but this paper did. Limitations of the study and the future directions should also be discussed.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to the opinions of experts, relevant analysis is supplemented in the literature review part, and the innovation points of this paper in establishing a dynamic credit index mechanism in the live streaming industry are highlighted. For specific revisions, please see the Introduction section. In addition, according to the suggestions of experts, the content about the limitations and future directions of this study was supplemented in the article. For the details of the revision, please see to the discussion part of Chapter 6.
Expert Opinion 3：Regarding format, the text and figures should be reviewed again and fine-tuned according to the format required by this journal. Also, check the English grammar and spelling of the entire paper.
Modification Description: First of all, I would like to thank the expert for your rigorous and meticulous review. According to the opinions of experts, the overall text details and picture formats of the article have been readjusted. For details on the revisions, please see the text of the article.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Analysis of the transaction behavior of live broadcasters with goods based on multi-stage game under dynamic credit index” has been revised by the authors. In my modest opinion, the issues raised in my earlier review of its content have been mostly addressed. For instance, the abstract is now ready to be read and appreciated by a broader audience. The content of the introductory section is more comprehensive and engaging. Thus, I believe the manuscript warrant publication in sustainability if the other reviewers and editor agree.
