Optimal decisions and channel coordination of a green supply chain with marketing effort and fairness concerns

Abstract

This paper addresses the optimal decisions and channel coordination issues in a green supply chain composed of a socially responsible manufacturer and a fair-mined retailer, where the manufacturer invests in advanced facilities/technologies to improve green quality of products, and the retailer exerts marketing effort to enhance market demand. We develop supply chain models under three scenarios: centralized system, wholesale price (WP) contract without fairness concerns, and WP contract with fairness concerns. Our results show that the retailer's fairness behavior further causes a benefit for herself, while the manufacturer and the total supply chain to suffer. Moreover, a revenue-cost-sharing (RCS) contract is introduced to coordinate supply chain. We prove that a win-win outcome is reachable, and the RCS contract is applicable in practice.