Game theoretical analysis and decision models in sustainable supply chain management

该提案旨在利用博弈论分析和决策模型来研究可持续供应链管理中几个具有挑战性的运营问题。在当前的商业环境中，来自政府、竞争对手和客户的压力使得企业必须提供环保和绿色的产品来减少他们的环境足迹。因此，可持续供应链管理的概念在学术界和商界越来越受欢迎。然而，在供应链中成功实施可持续运营存在许多障碍。例如，可持续运营通常涉及供应链成员的非经济考虑，如公平关切和社会偏好。要恰当地描述这些经济上不合理的标准，并设计适当的合同来协调供应链运营，这是一个挑战。一家公司在可持续性方面的投资通常代表着一个重要的成本中心，供应链中的其他成员也将从中受益。然后，重要的是建立一个公平的分配机制，在成员企业之间分担成本，以便持续的投资能够致力于促进可持续的供应链管理。从供应链利益相关者的角度评价不同监管和政策选择对可持续发展的有效性和公平性是一个重要的挑战。 本建议旨在从以下四个方面解决供应链管理中具有挑战性的可持续运营问题：(1)建立博弈论模型，描述供应链成员在可持续供应链管理中的非经济标准下的相互作用，如公平性、互惠性和社会偏好。(2)第二个组成部分是制定可持续供应链管理中的社会和环境责任分配方案。(3)第三个部分是提出有效的框架来评估不同监管和立法制度下可持续供应链管理的经济和社会效益。(4)建立协调可持续供应链管理的合作博弈模型。拟议研究的成功开展将为更好地理解和实施供应链的可持续运作提供有用的工具。

This proposal aims to employ game theoretic analysis and decision models to investigate several challenging operational issues in sustainable supply chain management. In the current business environment, pressures from government, competitors, and customers make it essential for firms to provide environmentally-friendly and green product to reduce their environmental footprint. As a result, the concept of sustainable supply chain management has gained increasing popularity among academia and business practitioners. However, there exist many barriers to successful implementation of sustainable operations in a supply chain. For instance, sustainable operations generally involve non-economic considerations by supply chain members such as fairness concerns and social preference. It is a challenge to properly characterize these economically irrational criteria and design appropriate contracts to coordinate supply chain operations. A firm's investment in sustainability typically represents a significant cost centre and other members in the supply chain will also benefit from it. Then, it is important to establish a fair allocation mechanism to share the cost among the member firms so that sustained investment can be committed to promoting sustainable supply chain management. It is an important challenge to evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of different regulation and policy choices for sustainable development from different supply chain stakeholders' perspectives. This proposal aims to address challenging sustainable operations issues in supply chain management from the following four directions: (1) The first component is to develop game-theoretic models to characterize the interactions of supply chain members under non-economic criteria such as fairness concerns, reciprocity, and social preference in sustainable supply chain management. (2) The second component is to devise social and environmental responsibility allocation schemes in sustainable supply chain management. (3) The third component is to put forward effective frameworks to evaluate economic and social performance of sustainable supply chain management under different regulation and legislation regimes. (4) The fourth component is to establish cooperative game models for coordinating sustainable supply chain management. A successful execution of the proposed research will furnish useful tools to better understand and implement sustainable operations of supply chains.