Integrating social and technical governance to build trust and satisfaction in hybrid digital ecosystems

This study examines how hybrid digital governance ecosystems among micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are shaped by the interaction between social and technical governance mechanisms. Drawing upon the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework (Ibrahim et al., 2024) and digital trust literature (Alnoor et al., 2022), social media marketing activities are conceptualised as social governance mechanisms, while perceived security represents a technical governance mechanism. Using survey data from 400 Indonesian MSMEs and partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the findings reveal that social governance mechanisms significantly enhance informal relational governance (trust), while technical governance mechanisms strengthen both trust and evaluative governance reinforcement (e-commerce satisfaction). Satisfaction emerges as the strongest predictor of purchase intention. The results demonstrate regulatory complementarity, whereby informal relational mechanisms and technical safeguards jointly stabilise transactional behaviour in hybrid digital markets. This study contributes to governance and regulation literature by empirically integrating social engagement and security assurance within a unified digital governance framework in an emerging economy context.