The reduction of fresh agricultural product volume loss throughout the supply chain system is of high importance due to their perishable nature and impact on society, the economy, and environment. In this paper, three models for two-stage pricing, coordination, and volume loss reduction of the supply chain where third-party logistics service providers and retailers act as a Stackelberg leader and a follower for fresh agricultural products are developed, taking into account both volume loss during transport and quality loss in retail in the presence of strategic consumers. The following results are drawn from the contract for sharing revenues and service costs: (1) The supply chain achieve coordination and the products are healthier for consumers; (2) the coordination leads to a reduction in the three types of volume losses simultaneously only if the lowest marginal costs of the supply chain occur under certain conditions; and (3) the increase in the service sensitivity coefficient, the increase in the freshness discount coefficient under certain conditions, the decrease in the consumer benefit discount coefficient under certain conditions, and the decrease in the price sensitivity coefficient lead to an increase in the profit of the supply chain and a reduction in the three types of volume losses.

The popularity of e-commerce has impacted traditional retail business. Farmer cooperatives running green agri-food pick-your-own (PYO) farms are facing the choice of whether or not to adopt online channels. PYO operation refers to consumers picking and purchasing the agri-food growing on a farm, and due to it being environmentally-friendly, healthy, and popular, it has been widely adopted by many farm cooperatives. This paper aims to discuss the practicality of introducing online channels to already established PYO farms in the green agri-food supply chain (GASC), who can personally take charge of the online channel or transfer it to one online retailer. Firstly, we constructed the demand functions of green agri-food by putting consumer utility, the freshness of agri-food, and transportation cost into consideration. Secondly, five decision models are built to characterize five operation modes, namely pure PYO mode, self-operated dual-channel mode, decentralized dual-channel mode, centralized dual-channel mode, and contractual cooperation mode. Furthermore, by taking price, demand, and profit with different modes into consideration, we are able to explore the introduction of online channels and green brand construction. Finally, numerical analysis is performed. We found that: (1) introducing an online channel is preferable strategy since the profit of the farmer cooperative in pure PYO mode is always less than the profit of a farmer cooperative in non-self-operated dual-channel modes; (2) the decision of self-operating an online channel is related to the fixed cost of creating a new online channel and the green food brand effect of online channel, and it is the optimal mode in some cases, while the contractual cooperation mode is the optimal mode in the remaining cases; and (3) the green food brand effect of online channels is does not necessarily improve with scale, and the initial freshness has a positive relationship to the profit, demand, and price of farmer cooperatives and online retailers.

This paper aims to investigate the optimal strategies for both centralized and decentralized modes in a two-echelon omni-channel organic agricultural supply chain (OASC) which consists of one farmer cooperative and one online retailer. Furthermore, the contracts of cooperation between the members in OASC are discussed. Based on both theory differential game and bi-level programming, we utilize the Nerlove–Arrow model and Stackelberg model to examine five cases of decision modes for both agents in the OASC. Then, we achieve the optimal strategies where the specified sets of organic growing effort, organic traceability technology effort, propaganda input, and service input can guarantee the maximization of the related profits. As a result, we could obtain the values of the corresponding optimal profits. For the centralized decision mode, the farmer cooperative and the online retailer make decisions with the goal of maximizing the overall profits of the OASC. Meanwhile, for the decentralized decision mode with four different cases, each member will independently make a decision with the goal of maximizing his own profit respectively. In detail, as for the fully decentralized decision mode, no contracts exist in OASC; regarding the decentralized decision mode with an information traceability cost sharing contract, two members pay the information traceability cost together; and for the decentralized decision mode with a revenue sharing contract, two members share the revenue together; as to the decentralized decision mode with a comprehensive contract, there are two cooperative ways that information traceability cost sharing and revenue sharing can be achieved. In addition, we also considered factors such as the consumer preferences of organic products and the cross influence between channels in models. Finally, through sensitivity analysis and comparison of optimal strategies and profits, we found that: (1) high consumer preferences of organic products and high cross influence between channels are profitable; and (2) the choice of contract is influenced by the relative size of the offline marginal income ratio and the online marginal income ratio.

In this paper, we explore the pricing and greenness issues of two competitive firms without and with consumer heterogeneity. We derive and compare the optimal solutions and profits employed by firms under different scenarios. Then, we identify the effects of consumer heterogeneity under different competition intensities. The analytical results reveal that if market competition is at a relatively low level, we find that: (i) when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is sufficiently small, more consumers have high environmental awareness, and companies easily achieve their environmental goals as well as economic goals; (ii) when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is at a medium level, as the fraction of consumers with high environmental awareness increases, and the firm might achieve economic goals at the cost of reducing environmental goals; and (iii) when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is at a high level, the fraction of consumers with high environmental awareness increases, but firms might have more difficulty achieving their environmental and economic goals. On the other hand, if the market competition is at a relatively high level, the presence of consumer heterogeneity can help improve environmental goals, but make achievement of economic goals difficult.

Hu, Y.; Yao, L., and Hu, Q., 2020. Evaluation of water resources carrying capacity in Jiangxi province based on principal component analysis. In: Hu, C. and Cai, M. (eds.), Geo-informatics and Oceanography. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 105, pp. 147–150. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Water is the source of life as well as an essential factor for social and economic development. By analyzing water resources carrying capacity (WRCC), it can be determined whether the water resources in a region match its socioeconomic development. Based on related data from 2013 to 2018, the development trends of the WRCC of Jiangxi Province and its 11 cities were analyzed via principal component analysis. The results showed that the WRCC of Jiangxi Province had continuously improved, rising rapidly from 2013 to 2016 and slowing down from 2016 to 2018. Among the 11 cities, five had improvements in WRCC on the whole, and six cities showed an increasing trend followed by a decreasing trend. According to the specific situations of Jiangxi Province and its 11 cities, the causes for the changes in WRCC were analyzed. Based on this, relevant suggestions were put forward to provide guidelines for the reasonable development and protection of water resources in Jiangxi Province.

On the basis of an external and static perspective on the topological structure of collaborative innovation networks, it is extremely difficult to answer the two most important concerns, namely, which structure is ideal and how to develop it in practice. By contrast, this study transfers to internal and dynamic perspectives, and then proposes that the essence of developing the ideal network lies in choosing the best partners. Therefore, we firstly propose the basic decision-making rules for selecting partners. In order of priority: knowledge distance, knowledge complementarity and barter exchange. Secondly, a model is constructed to describe this process of selecting partners and exchanging knowledge. Thirdly, the simulation results show that a small-world network is ideal in the initial stage of collaborative innovation. However, a random network is ideal in the mature periods. This result shows that the ideal network structure is not fixed, but affected by the life cycle of collaborative innovation alliance. Furthermore, this supports the notion that a small world is spontaneously generated in the real world, and also confirms that the formation of a small-world network will be driven intrinsically by a firm’s demand for external knowledge, and not necessarily by the external driving force of social capital. Finally, these findings solve the above two most important questions.