Firms’ green R&D cooperation behaviour in a supply chain: Technological spillover, power and coordination

Abstract

In response to the global fight against climate change, a growing number of firms cooperate with their supply chain partners on green innovations. This study explores firms' green R&D cooperation behaviour in a two-echelon supply chain in which a manufacturer and a retailer first cooperate to invest green R&D and then organise production according to a wholesale price contract. Through a comparison with non-cooperation models, we evaluate the effects of green R&D cooperation on the economic, environmental and social performances of the supply chain while simultaneously considering the technological spillover and supply chain power relationship. Our findings show that the R&D cooperation's improvement of firms' economic performance is mainly determined by firms' own green contribution level. This level is dependent on firms' green R&D investment efficiency and spillover as well as on their relevant power relationship with their supply chain partners. Interestingly, there is a Pareto improvement region in which the green R&D cooperation has a positive impact on firms, customers and the environment. In the case of a non-Pareto improvement region, supply chain coordination can be achieved through a two-part tariff contract. This applies to all three of the supply chain power structures investigated in this research.

Strategies on Pricing, Greenness Degree, and Carbon Emission Reduction in Supply Chains under Single and Cross Distributions of Green and Nongreen Products

“…us, the carbon abatement investment cost can be given by Retail price of manufacturer i's product Mathematical Problems in Engineering (c 3 e 2 /2). Similar assumptions were made in earlier studies [44][45][46].…”

Who Drives Green Innovation? A Game Theoretical Analysis of a Closed-Loop Supply Chain under Different Power Structures

“…Their results confirmed that regardless of who has leadership, a hybrid recycling mode outperforms in terms of the overall supply chain profit and recycling performance. Chen et al [52] analyzed green research and development (R&D) cooperation behavior of firms while considering different power structures. They proved that green R&D cooperation between supply chain members has a positive impact on consumer surplus and environmental protection under retailer-led and manufacturer-led supply chains.…”

Can Design for the Environment be Worthwhile? Green Design for Manufacturers Brands When Confronted with Competition from Store Brands

“…Wang et al [27] examined the antecedents, consequences, and moderators of fairness perceptions in consumer responses to the offering of green services, and their results revealed that consumers' inference of the firm's relative profit negatively influences their perceived fairness. Recently, Chen et al [28] indicated that the improvement of firms' economic performance resulting from R&D cooperation is mainly determined by firms' own level of green contribution. In addition, Laroche et al [29], Morrison and Beer [30], and Kai and Deng [31] provided empirical support for the growing environmental consciousness of consumers.…”

“…To reflect the fact that the consumer preferentially purchases environmentally friendly products, as in Guo et al [15], Chen et al [28], and Agrawal and Uelkue [39], we assume that if a new greener version of the national brand is introduced, then consumers' willingness to pay increases by a factor 1 1 a σ = + , where a represents Suppose that all consumers' willingness to pay for a national brand is v, which is uniformly distributed on the interval [0,1]; that is, v ∼ U[0, 1] [38]. To reflect the fact that the consumer preferentially purchases environmentally friendly products, as in Guo et al [15], Chen et al [28], and Agrawal and Uelkue [39], we assume that if a new greener version of the national brand is introduced, then consumers' willingness to pay increases by a factor σ 1 = 1 + a, where a represents the level of environmental friendliness of the new greener version of the national brand. Thus, following Yin et al [38] and Agrawal and Uelkue [39], we can obtain the consumer utility function for the new greener version of the national brand by solving U n = σ 1 v − p n , where p n refers to the price of the new greener version of the national brand.…”