In order to enhance the competitiveness of firms and seek more opportunities, it is increasingly popular for service platforms in different markets to promote their products jointly. To acquire a competitive edge and enhance sustainability of supply chains, it is crucial for such cross-market service platforms to take into account the cost incurred in promotion in addition to the price and quality of their products. We use game-theoretic models to investigate the effects of cooperative promotion on cross-market service platforms' optimal decision making and their supply chains, with a specific focus on whether they should adopt cooperative promotion by offering customers joint membership of the partnering platforms. It has been found that service platforms' choices on cooperative promotion are subject to the extent to which demands are influenced by joint promotional activities, price and quality of platforms. When the independent promotional activities of the service platforms have low impacts on demand, cooperative promotion tends to be more beneficial in terms of increasing the platforms' profits, and a higher demand also makes their respective supply chains more sustainable. Conversely, as the impact of the joint promotional activities on demand changes, lower prices and quality may improve or reduce the platforms' profits, but a lower demand will harm the sustainability of their respective supply chains. In addition, the higher the basic market demands for the service platforms are, the more advantage the service platforms will gain through cooperation and, consequently, they are less willing to invest more in cooperative promotion.

Retailers advertise on different sales channels. When consumers buy online, the effectiveness of advertising is discounted because they cannot feel the product. Observing this phenomenon, this paper studies the advertising strategy of a dual-channel retailer. In this paper, we build stylized game models for the retailer’s price and advertising levels on online and offline channels, respectively. Our contribution is to provide prescriptions for how dual-channel retailers make price and advertise decisions and determine which channel is more profitable for retailers. We find that advertising discounts are not always harming the retailer’s profits. The level of advertising discounts causes retailers to increase the selling price when consumers engage in online shopping. Also, we derive that retailers can choose the sales channels based on the level of consumers’ channel preference of consumers. Interestingly, an increase in the level of advertising discounts will contribute to the growth of the retailer’s profit. Finally, by numerical analysis, we demonstrate the robustness of the results.

Purpose: In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, governments have implemented subsidy policies to promote the adoption of new energy vehicles (NEVs) and reduce emissions from fuel vehicles (FVs). Nevertheless, incidents of subsidy fraud have resulted in the phase-out of these incentives, the dual-credit mechanism has emerged as a pivotal regulatory tool for fostering low-carbon vehicle development. We examine how subsidy phase-out interacts with the dual-credit policy to affect manufacturers’ emissions-reduction R&D, NEVs and FVs market share, and overall supply chain profitability. Design/methodology/approach: We analyze the impact of the dual-credit policy by developing a Stackelberg game model involving the government, a manufacturer producing both NEVs and FVs, a distributor, and consumers. Findings: Our results show that phase-out of subsidies incentivizes manufacturers to invest in emissions-reduction R&D, which enhances supply chain profitability. When subsidies are generous, higher credit prices and stricter fuel consumption targets are particularly effective in stimulating such investments. Moreover, as credit prices rise, the optimal retail price of NEVs consistently decreases. In contrast, the pricing behavior of FVs exhibits scenario-dependent variation. When the subsidy is moderate, the optimal prices of FVs increase with the credit price. However, under generous-subsidy conditions, this relationship becomes contingent upon the investment cost coefficient in R&D. Originality/value: We derive an interesting conclusion that the fuel consumption target has a dual effect: under generous subsidies, more stringent targets increase NEV market share, whereas under limited subsidies, they inadvertently enhance FV attractiveness, thereby dampening NEV demand.

Along with the accelerating development of live streaming, the enterprises are increasingly utilizing not only their own online shops, but also cooperate with the celebrities who showcase products in live broadcasts. To explore the impact of quality improvement and the spillover effect of live streaming on the optimal decisions of the enterprise and the celebrity, we construct the Stackelberg game to research decentralized and centralized decision-making structures. Additionally, we consider the role of the commission rate, treated as an exogenous variable, in coordinating the two sales modes (i.e., live streaming and online store). We find that the commission rate has the beneficial impact on the optimal price and profit for supply chain participants, when the spillover effect of live streaming is relatively high under the decentralized decision-making structure. We show that the cost-sharing joint commission mechanism in the quality improvement model of decentralized decision-making will establish the coordination within the two sales modes, leading to the win–win situation for all parties involved, as well as increasing the system profit. Finally, the numerical experiments show that the increase in the commission rate will reduce the celebrity’s sharing proportion of quality improvement cost, thereby reducing the sharing proportion of the supply chain system profit.

Effective management of relief supply chains is crucial during natural disasters and public health emergencies, where both demand and supply uncertainties can impact response and preparedness efforts. While existing research has primarily focused on addressing demand uncertainty, the overlooked issue of supply uncertainty, arising from production disruptions and logistical failures, presents a critical challenge. We develop a single-period, two-echelon relief supply chain model that considers supply uncertainty to analyze the operational decisions of the government and supplier under different option contract types, including call option contracts (COC) and bidirectional option contracts (BOC). The results show that compared to the COC, the BOC provides greater flexibility by allowing the government to adjust order quantities both upward and downward under demand and supply uncertainty. However, we also uncover some counterintuitive findings. As supply uncertainty increases, the government reduces its initial orders and shifts reliance toward option-based flexibility, rather than simply expanding upfront procurement to buffer uncertainty. In addition, under rising supply uncertainty, the BOC is not necessarily superior to the COC. While the BOC tends to benefit the government by improving cost control and providing greater flexibility, the COC can actually be more favorable to the supplier, as it helps sustain profitability despite increased supply uncertainty. In addition, considering loss aversion, the BOC alleviates the tendency of the government to overstock driven by concerns over potential shortages. The findings suggest that the government should consider the BOC to enhance procurement flexibility and improve the efficiency of emergency response.