Assessing the ecology of cluster-based enterprise trust networks through percolation theory: Is your business environment trustworthy?

Abstract

Since 2023, bank failures in America and Europe have reignited concerns about trust in credit transactions. During financial turbulence, heightened attention tends to be directed towards inter-enterprise trust management. However, existing studies have mainly focused on individual enterprise credit credibility, leaving a gap in analysing trust ecology within entire enterprise clusters. This study proposes an enterprise trust ecology assessment based on percolation theory. First, we established cluster-based enterprise trust networks (C-ETNs) and employed an entropy method to calculate the trust values of enterprise nodes. Subsequently, based on percolation theory, we mapped the trust ecology evolution to point percolation model to quantify trust ecology. Through simulations and data analysis of Chinese A-shares from 2007 to 2021, we uncovered a phase-transition phenomenon in trust ecology improvement. Trust in A-shares moderately improved, with business and comprehensive industry sectors as well as midland and west areas showing prominent improvement. However, overall trust ecology remained in early-phase transition, and almost all sectors and regions experienced upward bottlenecks. This study provides a new technical method for improving credit management in inter-enterprise transactions, thus enhancing market credit construction. Its extensive application is also valuable for economic and societal trust concerns.