Extensible Business Reporting Language Technology Adoption and Diffusion—A Tripartite Evolutionary Game Perspective

The adoption and diffusion level of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) technology among listed enterprises is an important indicator of the capital market‘s openness and efficiency degree. In this study, we established an evolutionary model between the government, listed enterprises, and institutional investors, analyzed the evolutionary path and evolutionary law of the model, and conducted numerical simulations. In the numerical simulations, we discussed the impact of different parameters change on the strategic choices of the three parties, and the results show that increasing government enforcement and subsidies intensity, reducing the adoption cost for listed enterprises, increasing the incremental benefits of adoption for enterprises, and increasing the participation level of institutional investors all promote the adoption of XBRL technology by listed enterprises. The adoption behavior of listed enterprises is driven by a combination of the government’s policy guidance and institutional investors’ XBRL engagement level. Therefore, this paper is an effective supplement to the innovative technology adoption and diffusion theory and provides policy recommendations and management insights for the government’s efforts in promoting XBRL technology, which is conducive to solving the problem of insufficient motivation for XBRL technology adoption by listed enterprises.