**2. Theoretical Analysis**

#### *2.1. Formation Logic of Peer Behavior of Green Governance*

After the reform of the tax-sharing system, China's economic development entered a new era. Local governments now undertake more social responsibilities while fulfilling their economic construction responsibilities. Protecting the interests of the jurisdiction and realizing the balance of power and responsibility have become the local governments' action logic. Under the guidance of this action logic, the dynamic mechanism of social operation has become the critical element of effective, healthy, and sustainable managemen<sup>t</sup> action of local governments [11]. Local governments achieve orderly and efficient social managemen<sup>t</sup> through the external core links of power source development, power conversion, power distribution, power feedback, and other mechanisms [12]. As the local government's dynamic response to comprehensively deepen reform and optimize governance capability, green governance has a robust local governmen<sup>t</sup> distinctive brand. Green governance exists in the form of system design and is regarded as a combination of 'package' behavior and capability [13]. Under the social operation dynamic mechanism, green governance takes the local governmen<sup>t</sup> as the main body and the construction of regional ecological civilization environment as the power source. Based on the extension of 'package' behavior and ability and the integration or exclusion of the interest demands of various subjects, it forms the dynamic mechanism operation field of gravitation, thrust, resistance, and pressure [11].

Through the guidance of four force fields of gravitation, thrust, resistance, and pressure, local governments gradually form the cooperative or autonomous social operation dynamic mechanism of green governance. The action's feedback is characterized by cooperative or autonomous governance action. Based on the evolutionary stability of cooperative or autonomous governance action, green governance peer behavior is formed. From the

perspective of gravity, the common interests of local governments lead the two sides to strengthen the cooperation relationship, and the increase of cooperation income leads to the strengthening of the green governance cooperation dynamic mechanism [14]. Unlike the endogenous gravitation caused by internal interests, the thrust comes more from the external environment of green governance. On the one hand, the guidance of macro value and the implementation of the top-level system bring grea<sup>t</sup> guidance to the practice of green governance. It ensures the development of green governance through the mechanism of error correction and fault tolerance [15,16]. On the other hand, with the promotion of the green governance culture system, the participation of green governance subjects and the flow of various elements break the resource and administrative barriers of green governance among governments and promote the stability of the green governance cooperation dynamic mechanism [17,18]. As the key field of the formation of the green governance cooperation dynamic mechanism, gravity and thrust are a positive force. However, due to the differences in the basis of green governance and the contradictions in the distribution of governmen<sup>t</sup> benefits, the characteristics of the 'rational economic man' of local governments are increasingly obvious. The resistance conflict between the maximization of local interests and cooperative benefits is becoming more and more acute [11]. Simultaneously, the differentiation of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing of green governance is serious, and the independent dynamic mechanism of local governmen<sup>t</sup> green governance gradually dominates the governmen<sup>t</sup> managemen<sup>t</sup> behavior [19]. This kind of governance resistance becomes the reverse force of the formation of the green governance cooperation dynamic mechanism. Whether it is to protect the interests of the jurisdiction optimization or out of rational decision-making, local governments need to promote green governance. However, there is a practical problem: the real change brought by green governance is not ye<sup>t</sup> expected, but the local governmen<sup>t</sup> has been burdened with higher governance pressure. On the one hand, this kind of pressure makes the local governments choose to follow other districts' managemen<sup>t</sup> modes, trying to share the pressure and reduce the difficulty of decision-making. On the other hand, it causes some local officials to make narrow decisions, compressing the production cycle of governance achievements with expansionary governance to realize subversive development. Pressure causes local government green governance to be more competitive and observant, tends to form a cooperative dynamic mechanism of green governance, or reverses and solidifies the independent dynamic mechanism of green governance, which is reflected as an uncertain force. The action mechanism of each force field is shown in Figure 1.

With the shaping of the four force fields and the stability of local government's cooperation or autonomous governance, local government's green governance presents the peer behavior. That is to say, local governments with similar geographical location, decision-making, and institutional environments form defensive administrative concepts, learn from each other or imitate each other in the process of green governance, and become a 'peer' collective.

**Figure 1.** Logic diagram of the formation of the same peer behavior of green governance.

#### *2.2. The Necessity of Knowledge Management in Green Governance*

As a kind of managemen<sup>t</sup> activity, the green governance of the local governmen<sup>t</sup> needs substantial knowledge to assist in ensuring correct and effective decision-making. Scholars are concerned about the role of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> in improving government work efficiency, and the research focuses on knowledge transfer and knowledge absorption and application [20]. Bonaccorsi [21] found that knowledge transfer has a positive effect on government—industry-university-research collaboration, and the process of knowledge transfer across organizations is the process of the governmen<sup>t</sup> leading the industry-university-research collaboration. Koschatzky [22] tested the dynamic relationship between the knowledge transfer model and governmen<sup>t</sup> collaborative innovation performance. He believes that the active transfer of knowledge, the coordination of objectives, and the correct transfer mode's determination will help improve the innovation output of collaborative organizations. Sun [23] discussed the path of knowledge heterogeneity and absorptive capacity on organizational performance from the perspective of organizational connection strength and believed that no matter what state the organization is in, it will accept heterogeneous knowledge resources. Horvat [24] used the knowledge absorption model to establish the corresponding index system, analyzed the coupling coordination of external knowledge absorption and utilization by governmen<sup>t</sup> organizations, and emphasized knowledge acceptance. After the knowledge chain construction of knowledge transfer (output), knowledge absorption (input), and knowledge application (practice output) is completed, the expansion of sharing background further extends the knowledge chain and opens up the link of knowledge sharing [25] (input-output collaboration). Further integration of social attributes promotes the birth of a collaborative development knowledge sharing model [26], reducing the loss and capital cost in the process of knowledge transfer. Ahmed and Zhang analyzed the dilemma of knowledge sharing from social media [27] and alliance networks [28], respectively, and affirmed the positive contribution of knowledge sharing with alliance building. He emphasized the problem of knowledge embezzlement and unequal distribution of performance within the group and believed that the critical collaboration and breakthrough of knowledge is conducive to the stable development of the governmen<sup>t</sup> collaborative development network.

To be sure, knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> not only promotes the scientific green governance of local governments but also promotes the formation of a government-led green governance collaborative system. However, there are many problems in the collaborative

system: many organizations use the chain of knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing to carry out free riding actions [29] and conceal their destructive behaviors. On the one hand, enterprises use the collaborative system to reduce decision-making costs [30] and show their social decision-making as a positive transformation, but in fact they are not separate from the sequence of inefficient innovation and ineffective decision-making. On the other hand, with the enhancement of local governmen<sup>t</sup> autonomy and self-interest, the conflicts of interests among regions and institutional environments pose challenges to green governance. Many local governments choose their behaviors to keep consistent with 'successful groups'. Therefore, although the green governance under this collaborative system reflects regional enterprises' collaborative development, it inevitably causes problems such as repeated construction and collective irrationality [31]. Although it has increased green social performance to a certain extent, negative-peer effects gradually emerge in areas with a poor institutional environment and weak innovation foundation [32]. Given the homogenization, inefficiency, and irrationality of local government's green governance, it is necessary to investigate the evolutionary logic of local government's green governance peer behavior from the perspective of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> and explore how to use knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> to improve local government's green governance and enhance the decision-making efficiency of local government's peer behavior.

#### **3. The Differentiation Logic of Green Governance Peer Behavior Based on Knowledge Management**

#### *3.1. Local Governments and Their Green Governance Responsibilities*

From the perspective of heterogeneous government, this paper divides the local governmen<sup>t</sup> into two types: focus local governmen<sup>t</sup> (referred to as 'focus governmen<sup>t</sup>') and non-focus local governmen<sup>t</sup> (referred to as 'non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup>') [33,34]. The focus governmen<sup>t</sup> refers to the key actors and essential leaders in the development of regional linkage; non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> refers to the main participants with follow-up in regional linkage development. In Chinese practice, focus governmen<sup>t</sup> is a local governmen<sup>t</sup> with a high degree of regional development, a high level of central governmen<sup>t</sup> attention, and a more prominent governmen<sup>t</sup> capacity. Non-focus governments are local governments where regional development is relatively backward and governmen<sup>t</sup> capacity is more limited. Focus and non-focus governments basically cover the main types of governmen<sup>t</sup> in a metropolitan area or economic zone. In the Yangtze River Economic Belt, for example, the focus governments of Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang have become the development leaders in the economic belt, while the non-focus governments of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Jiangxi generally undertake tasks such as industrial transfer and are in a state of development following.

As a significant project and action direction of local governmen<sup>t</sup> development and transformation, green governance tends to be a kind of instrumental behavior and contains value [35]. This concept is embodied in the concept of 'green' and 'sustainable' development and tries to promote the society to form a 'green' development value orientation. Due to the high threshold of green development and the difficulty of implementation, local governmen<sup>t</sup> governance behavior's 'instrumental' characteristics are strengthened. For example, the local governmen<sup>t</sup> improved the corresponding democratic decision-making, administrative approval, social supervision, and other links and tried to support society in carrying out green transformation with more relaxed policies and softer ways.

#### *3.2. Mechanism of Knowledge Management on Green Governance of Local Government*

#### 3.2.1. Knowledge Management Promotes Green Governance Peer Behavior

Due to the liquidity of knowledge, local governments are connected through the knowledge chain. In the process of the knowledge chain transmitting knowledge (knowledge transfer, knowledge absorption, and knowledge application), local governments' behaviors and ideas influence and act on each other. The feedback is characterized by the changes of the four major fields of dynamic social mechanism. From the perspective of

gravity, there is a significant gap in economic and political resource endowment among local governments, which leads to differences in willingness and ability of green governance [11]. Through the moderating role of knowledge management, we can guide the matching orientation of green governance's will and ability, amplifying or reducing the gravitational effect and determining whether green governance is in the state of cooperation or autonomous dynamic mechanism. In the thrust field, the local government's external ability is limited, the system normative and rigid binding force are not strong, and the managemen<sup>t</sup> efficiency and sustainable role are limited [11]. The moderating effect of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> can guide the direction of explicit knowledge such as local governmen<sup>t</sup> managemen<sup>t</sup> ability, that is, enlarge or reduce the thrust effect and determine the final state of local governmen<sup>t</sup> green governance. In the pressure field, local governments will be subject to the severe pressure of the central government's 'hierarchical pressure and key focus' institutional structure, resulting in the low willingness of green governance [11]. Moreover, the effective period of green governance is long, which may produce potential internal pressure on governance activities. The moderating effect of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> can guide the direction of tacit knowledge such as local government's managemen<sup>t</sup> intention, that is, amplify or reduce the pressure effect and ultimately affect the evolution and stability of green governance. As far as resistance is concerned, knowledge management's effectiveness will have an impact on the benefits of green governance of local governments. Through the dynamic balance between cooperative benefits and independent benefits of green governance, the leading dynamic mechanism of green governance is determined by amplifying or reducing the role of resistance. Therefore, knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> determines the trend of green governance peer behavior through the platform of four major fields.

#### 3.2.2. Knowledge Management Content of Green Governance

In reality, in the face of mobile green development boundaries and diversified green governance demands, many local governments find it difficult to consider the unity of behavior idea and are forced by 'pressure cognition' and 'responsibility cognition' [36], leading to the conglomeration of green governance. In fact, the imbalance of local government's behavior idea is more manifested in the lack of knowledge management. As an essential means to promote the green governance of local governments, knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> undertakes the critical task of clarifying local governmen<sup>t</sup> behavior and planning governance concepts. To some extent, the behavior and idea of local governmen<sup>t</sup> is essentially a kind of knowledge resource. In green governance, some local governments' behaviors to society are presented in explicit forms such as policy planning and procedures, which is a kind of explicit knowledge. In contrast, local governments' ideas are presented in implicit forms such as managemen<sup>t</sup> experience, willingness to green development, and value orientation, which are kinds of tacit knowledge. The local government's managemen<sup>t</sup> of the two kinds of knowledge reflects its willingness and ability for green governance.

At present, the most classic knowledge transformation model in academia is the SECI model proposed by Nonaka, which contains four models for the mutual transformation of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Most scholars at home and abroad have extended and expanded on this basis when doing relevant research in the field of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> [37–40]. The SECI model can better explain the operation of knowledge [41], and the IDE-SECI extension model [42] can reflect the dynamic transformation process of internal and external knowledge in an organization. With this model's help, this paper describes the local government's knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> and explains the role of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> in promoting green governance peer behavior. Generally speaking, knowledge is divided into four stages: socialization (S), externalization (E), combination (C), and internalization (I) [43].

In green governance, there is a knowledge collaborative transformation relationship among local governments, as shown in Figure 2. Knowledge can be divided into internal knowledge and external knowledge. Internal knowledge is the explicit and tacit knowledge of local governments, while external knowledge is the explicit and tacit knowledge of other local governments. The hidden knowledge reflects the concept of green governance of local government, including the attitude and attention to green governance. Explicit knowledge reflects the green governance behavior of the local government, including policy planning, managemen<sup>t</sup> experience, technology orientation, human resources allocation ability, etc. The internal knowledge follows the IDE-SECI transformation mode. The four stages of knowledge circulation connect the knowledge interaction activities between local governments and enterprises within their jurisdiction, laying the foundation for the internal and external transformation of knowledge.

In the internal and external transformation of knowledge, there are two main types of local governments: social transformation and combinatorial transformation.

**Figure 2.** IDE-SECI simplified model of green governance peer behavior.

Social Transformation: Taking the non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> as an example, its green governance will be affected by the focus government. Non-focus governments often follow the focus government's development strategy, which is essentially the result of the tacit knowledge function of emotion and willingness [44]. This is defined as the relatively low organizational knowledge level and the relatively high level of organizational learning [45]. For the focus government, the output process of tacit knowledge is the social externalization of knowledge, which shows the 'low latitude' mobility of knowledge. In the process of knowledge output from focus governmen<sup>t</sup> to non-focus government, the difference of governments' 'knowledge pool' will lead to feedback from the non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> to

the focus government. In local development, there are leading or superior departments in non-focus government, which will produce crisis or stimulation to focus governmen<sup>t</sup> and guide the focus governmen<sup>t</sup> to strengthen green promotion willingness in weak departments. This process is social externalization of non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> knowledge. In Chinese practice, social transformation includes realistic forms such as regional governmen<sup>t</sup> research missions and governmen<sup>t</sup> exchange meetings. Based on these platform activities, local governments interoperate to achieve the will for green governance.

Combinatorial transformation: Non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> has some problems, such as lack of managemen<sup>t</sup> experience, imperfect governmen<sup>t</sup> systems, etc. Due to the knowledge spillover effect, the focus governmen<sup>t</sup> will guide the non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> to supplement the explicit knowledge of green governance through industrial transfer, assistance, and docking, and will promote the development of regional green integration as the 'leader of the economic belt.' This knowledge flow process is the combined internalization of non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> knowledge [31]. In the process of capacity spillover, the nonfocus governmen<sup>t</sup> will also give feedback to complementary knowledge to make up for some deficiencies of the focus governmen<sup>t</sup> and to realize the combined externalization of knowledge [24]. In Chinese practice, the combined transformation includes the signing of regional specific policies, the establishment of cooperation parks, the construction of green high-tech interoperable development zones, and other realistic forms. Through these opportunities for cooperation, local governments are able to interact with each other to achieve green governance capacity.

When the green governance cooperation dynamic mechanism is formed among local governments under the joint action of social transformation and combinatorial transformation, the knowledge learning effect and knowledge spillover effect promote local governments to build green governance collaborative networks and form knowledge synergy effects. In the interactive process of the knowledge synergy effect, local governments further obtain the reciprocal effect of knowledge. The knowledge learning effect, knowledge spillover effect, knowledge synergy effect, and knowledge reciprocity effect constitute the cooperative benefits of local governmen<sup>t</sup> green governance and promote the stable development of cooperative governance.

3.2.3. Differentiation Process of Green Governance Conglomeration Behavior under Knowledge Management

In green governance, the focus governmen<sup>t</sup> and non-focus government, through the relationship of social transformation and combinatorial transformation of knowledge given by knowledge management, form the knowledge learning effect, knowledge spillover effect, knowledge synergy effect and knowledge reciprocity effect based on the stages of internalization of external knowledge, externalization of internal knowledge, and internal knowledge transformation. Based on the moderating effect of knowledge management, all kinds of knowledge effects adjust the level of explicit and tacit knowledge of local governments, which are characterized by the change of four major fields of dynamic social mechanism. Under the comprehensive action of gravity, thrust, pressure, and resistance, local governments eventually form green governance cooperation or autonomous power mechanisms and produce two strategies of cooperative governance or autonomous governance. Among them, the strategy of independent governance means that the subject is affected by resistance and refuses to transform knowledge in order to maintain the local 'rational interests'; the strategy of cooperative governance means that the subject is affected by gravity and thrust and chooses to transform knowledge and obtain the benefits of the knowledge effect. Due to the differences between focus governmen<sup>t</sup> and non-focus government, focus governmen<sup>t</sup> usually actively leads non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> to transform knowledge in cooperative governance. Non-focus governments generally take an active part in knowledge transformation, and both sides realize knowledge flow and change their own explicit and tacit knowledge level. The formation of cooperative or autonomous governance strategies stems from the specific practices of different countries. Based on the analysis of the literature, it is evident that the United States is a country with a federal

governmen<sup>t</sup> where local governments have more power and are less influenced by the dynamics of social operations, which in turn can lead to autonomous dynamics [46–48]. In developed countries such as Europe, where the central governmen<sup>t</sup> power is more centralized and more influenced by the dynamics of social operations, local governments tend to adopt more cooperative governance strategies [49–51]. In developing countries such as India, Brazil, the Philippines, and Malaysia, governmen<sup>t</sup> power appears to be centralized but is actually relatively decentralized, with weak governance capacity in both central and local governments in green governance activities [52–55]. On the basis of the above research, this paper uses the Chinese government's green governance experience as a reference to analyze four cohort states formed by focus and non-focus governments based on the combination of governance strategies and the role of pressure fields.


The generation of all kinds of green governance peer behavior, the realization of peer behavior adapting to the regional environment, and the generation of peer benefits need knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> regulation (as shown in Figure 3). The specific embodiment is as follows: first, the level of green governance ability and willingness of various local governments must be adjusted to make them enter the appropriate group state; secondly, all kinds of the same group state must be guided to the positive-peer state to produce the peer effect.

**Figure 3.** Relationship between green governance and peer behavior.

#### **4. Evolutionary Game Model of Green Governance Peer Behavior of Local Government**

Under the effect of knowledge management, explicit knowledge, and tacit knowledge, such as green governance ability and willingness, focus governments and non-focus governments are transformed into each other. Because of the interest and the necessity of green governance, the two sides have generated a game relationship of green governance in the collaborative knowledge transformation. Among them, the focus governmen<sup>t</sup> and non-focus governmen<sup>t</sup> have two strategies of cooperative governance and autonomous governance, respectively. According to the direction of decision-making and the effect of strategy, they form four conglomeration states: positive-peer (cooperation cooperation), negative-peer (autonomy autonomy), consistent-direction-peer (autonomy cooperation), and reverse-peer (cooperation autonomy). As a stable result of the evolutionary game of local government's green governance, peer state is essentially the result of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> regulation on the level of local government's explicit and tacit knowledge. It is also the degree of influence of various knowledge effects on local government's cooperation or autonomous strategy in the stages of internalization of external knowledge, externalization of internal knowledge, and transformation of internal knowledge.

This paper constructs the evolutionary game model and analyzes the ultimate stability strategy of the green governance peer behavior of local government, namely, the final peer state. This paper discusses the influence of each knowledge effect on the stable strategy in each stage of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> and identifies the key factors contributing to the formation of the knowledge effect. On this basis, considering that the goal of knowledge managemen<sup>t</sup> regulation is the level of explicit and tacit knowledge of local government, the difference of the explicit and tacit knowledge level is related to the same group state. Therefore, numerical evolution and simulation analysis have studied the influence of the local government's explicit and tacit knowledge level on the final peer state. By analyzing the evolutionary stability and the influence of various factors on the peer state, the evolution trend of green governance peer behavior of local governmen<sup>t</sup> is intuitively displayed and depicted, which provides theoretical guidance for guiding and controlling peer behavior and forming a positive-peer state.
