Digital platform capability and employee intrapreneurship: the mediating effect of employee value co-creation in the Chinese context

As digital transformation accelerates across China, organizations increasingly depend on digital platforms not only to enhance operational efficiency but also to cultivate employee-driven innovation. However, the mechanisms through which platform capabilities translate into intrapreneurial behaviour remain underexplored. This study investigates how digital platform capability influences employee intrapreneurship using two-wave matched data from 278 senior managers and employees in China. Results show that digital integration and reconfiguration capabilities significantly promote intrapreneurship. Employee value co-creation partially mediates these effects, while employee flexibility strengthens the indirect relationships. These findings enrich understanding of how digital platforms facilitate bottom-up innovation in China’s evolving digital economy.