Abstract:

The online intermediary service supermarket represents a pioneering local institutional innovation aimed at addressing administrative dependence and market distortion in China’s intermediary service sector. Using Huizhou City in Guangdong Province as a case study, this paper develops an analytical framework of “institution—platform—rule execution” to examine how the reform evolved from local experimentation to provincial institutionalization and cross-provincial diffusion. The study finds that Huizhou reconstructed the governance framework through standardized service lists, open market entry, and credit-based supervision, forming a rule system that can be operationalized and quantified. By embedding institutional logic into platform architectures, the reform enabled algorithmic rule enforcement, full-process traceability, and scalable institutional replication, exemplifying an “institutionally embedded informatization” model. Furthermore, the diffusion of this model follows a “policy template + platform system” mechanism, highlighting the technological and tool-based characteristics of institutional propagation in the digital government era.

Key words: online intermediary service supermarket, institutional embedding, platform-based governance, institutional diffusion, digital government