Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis of Trust Relationship between Enterprises in a Cloud Manufacturing Environment: A Service Composition Perspective

Due to the existence of limited rationality and information asymmetry, trust between enterprises in the cloud manufacturing environment is characterized by significant complexity. In this paper, to promote the formation of a better trust relationship between enterprises and to ensure the efficient service and stable operation of the manufacturing process to a greater extent, we take into account the subjective cognition of the game parties from the perspective of service combination, introduce the prospect theory, construct an evolutionary game model of “service demander-service provider-platform supervisor,” analyze the evolutionary stabilization strategy, and explore the influence of different factors on the interenterprise trust relationship in the cloud manufacturing environment through numerical simulation. The results show that enhancing the synergy between multiple service providers has a significant impact on improving trust between cloud manufacturing enterprises. The rewards and punishments of the cloud manufacturing platform are conducive to improving interenterprise trust. There exists a critical value dividing opportunistic behavior into explicit and implicit behaviors. When it is less than the critical value, opportunistic behavior is implicit and the service demander trusts the service provider and the transaction continues; when it is greater than the critical value, opportunistic behavior is explicit and the service demander no longer trusts until the service provider is fully trustworthy. The inhibitory effect of good transaction history on opportunistic behavior is evident. Finally, the reasons and effects of the above factors and the subjective perceptions of the game parties in cloud manufacturing are discussed, as well as their concrete manifestations in the CASICloud (China Aerospace Science&Industry Cloud) and relevant suggestions are put forward.