Lin Wang, Siew Imm Ng, Norazlyn Kamal Basha
This study investigates the moderating role of blockchain traceability adoption in enhancing consumer engagement and purchase intention within live-streaming agricultural e-commerce platforms in China. Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework operationalized at the aggregate market level and information asymmetry theory, this research employs longitudinal market-level time-series data spanning 2019 to 2024, utilizing hierarchical regression analysis with Hayes's conditional process framework to examine main effects, mediation mechanisms, and moderation relationships. The empirical findings reveal that platform development and information transparency exert significant positive effects on market purchase behavior, with consumer engagement serving as a partial mediating mechanism transmitting these effects. The moderation analysis demonstrates that blockchain traceability adoption significantly strengthens the relationships between platform stimuli and consumer engagement, with the information transparency pathway exhibiting substantially stronger moderation effects than the platform development pathway, demonstrating that blockchain technology functions as a selective trust-enhancing mechanism that validates quality signals rather than operating as a general platform enhancer—a distinction representing the central empirical contribution of this study. These findings extend the traditional S-O-R framework by incorporating technological infrastructure as a boundary condition shaping stimulus effectiveness at the market level, while providing practical guidance for platform operators and policymakers to prioritize blockchain traceability infrastructure investment in conjunction with transparency enhancement initiatives for promoting high-quality development of agricultural live streaming e-commerce.