When Algorithms Push Firms to Cheat: AI, Blockchain, and Financing in China

Ming Fu

doi:10.65455/d2tq5y61

作者

Ming Fu Guangzhou Institute of Science and Technology 作者

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.65455/d2tq5y61

关键词:

SMEs, Financing Constraints, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Governance Synergy, Dual-Threshold Mechanism

摘要

As pillars of China's economy, SMEs(Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) face persistent financing frictions. To address these challenges, the government promotes digital finance tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. AI enables rapid risk assessment and improves efficiency but often imposes rigid standards that overlook SME conditions, creating algorithmic pressures and incentives for data manipulation. Blockchain enhances governance through immutable, transparent records but raises compliance costs and adaptation burdens. Drawing on interviews with SME owners, managers, and financial intermediaries, this study applies grounded theory to analyze how AI and blockchain jointly reconfigure financing governance in China. Findings reveal that algorithmic rigidity and blockchain transparency interact, generating systemic tension while compelling institutional adaptation from firms. This dynamic converges into a state of governance synergy, wherein the technologies' complementary functions are institutionalized, ultimately producing a dual-threshold financing mechanism. Under this mechanism, firms must sequentially pass AI-driven credit screening and blockchain-based data verification. This research advances digital governance theory by framing technology as an active institutional shaper and contributes to SME finance literature by elucidating the paradigm shift from relationship-based to protocol-based financing logic.

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When Algorithms Push Firms to Cheat: AI, Blockchain, and Financing in China

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