Global strategists emphasize leveraging capabilities developed in domestic markets when expanding into international markets, a strategy reflected in the entry of Korean startups into the Chinese market. Value appropriation refers to a company's ability to claim its share of the value created in a target market, with value appropriation factors being critical elements required for this process. Despite these strategies, many foreign companies fail to achieve expected performance in China, often attributed to their inability to secure the necessary value appropriation factors. Researchers posit that business guanxi can play a pivotal role in facilitating the acquisition of these factors in the Chinese market. This study examines the relationship between the network capabilities of global startups and value appropriation factors during the overseas expansion stage. It also explores the moderating effect of business guanxi through empirical research. The data was collected via surveys from Korean global startups targeting business operations in China. The results indicate that sub-components of network capability, specifically networking capability and international market resource securing capability, are significantly associated with the acquisition of value appropriation factors. Furthermore, business guanxi was found to positively moderate the relationship between networking capability and securing value appropriation factors. These findings suggest that Korean global startups should prioritize developing strong network capabilities and fostering business guanxi to enhance their ability to secure value appropriation factors during the overseas expansion stage. Chinese companies do not have deep trust in Korean startups. Therefore, startups should build a business guanxi based on emotional trust from the beginning of early entry. This effort will extend beyond the trust of startup products and services to corporate trust.

A secure digital platform (SDP) can provide B2B marketers with confidence to use communications technology (CT) and engage in information sharing that facilitates resource utilization. Interlinked digital platforms constitute the company’s ecosystem and barriers in the form of a lack of skills and knowledge in relation to governance and compliance can be overcome through organizational intervention that is external to an individual’s capability of control. A framework for an SDP was developed by utilizing network theory and data were collected via an online survey and analysed (n=207) using SEM, AMOS. Organizational intervention through an SDP can help B2B marketers to increase the organization’s resource capability through improved interaction. It can also help individuals to become pro-actively compliant and be less at risk from various threats (e.g., fake news) as the organization provides a safer digital environment.