Cooperation Mode Selection and Information Sharing in a Fresh Produce Supply Chain With Freshness-Keeping Effort

ABSTRACT

This article considers a fresh produce supply chain where the supplier provides freshness-keeping effort and the e-commerce platform owns private demand information. The supplier can choose to cooperate with the platform in reselling or agency selling mode, and the platform can choose whether to share information. Considering that demand is affected mainly by freshness and price, we model a multistage game and explore the supplier’s cooperation mode choice and the platform’s information sharing strategy. We reveal that the supplier should consider scale economics while investing in freshness-keeping resources. The platform should be cautious in setting the commission fee because she does not always benefit from the increased commission rate. We also show that the platform may benefit or suffer from information sharing, depending on the freshness sensitivity and the cooperation mode choice. As information sharing benefits responsive decision making, we reveal that the supplier may choose agency selling to induce information sharing even at a high commission rate. We also find that the interaction between cooperation mode selection and information sharing may lead to a win–win or lose–lose equilibrium strategy. Specifically, the supplier and the platform may achieve win–win cooperation under agency selling (reselling) at a low (high) commission rate. Then, to improve supply-chain performance, we design incentive contracts to motivate information sharing and adjust the cooperation mode choice. After the strategy adjustment, we find that the supplier may adopt a strategy of high quality with a low price under agency selling.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES:

• Supply-chain management
• fresh produce supply chain
• cooperation mode choice
• information sharing
• agency selling

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72171029, 72101038], the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science project [grant number 21YJC630081], and the Graduate Scientific Research and Innovation Foundation of Chongqing, China [grant number CYB20053].

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bin Dan

Bin Dan ([email protected]) is a professor at the School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China. He has authored several articles, books, and chapters focused on supply-chain management and operations research. In recent years, Dr. Dan published papers in such journals as European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, and others.

Yu Tian

Yu Tian ([email protected]) is working on her Ph.D. at the School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China. Her research interests include fresh produce supply chains and information sharing. She has published in Electronic Commerce Research, Managerial and Decision Economics, and other journals.

Xumei Zhang

Xumei Zhang ([email protected]; corresponding author) is a professor at the School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China. Her research interests include e-commerce, supply-chain management, and operations management. Dr. Zhang’s work has been published in European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, and other journals.

Molin Liu

Molin Liu ([email protected]) is on the faculty of the School of Business Administration, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, P. R. China. She holds a Ph. D in management science and engineering. Dr. Liu’s research interests include supply-chain management and information sharing. She has published several papers in European Journal of Operational Research and other venues.

Songxuan Ma

Songxuan Ma ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. student in business administration at the School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China. Her research interests include fresh produce supply chains and information sharing.