Exploring combined effects of dominance structure, green sensitivity, and green preference on manufacturing closed-loop supply chains

Abstract

Green closed-loop supply chains management is inevitably affected by multiple stakeholders' green attitudes and behaviors. This study considers enterprises' green sensitivities and consumers' green preference into a three-echelon manufacturing closed-loop supply chain to construct manufacturer-led and retailer-led Stackelberg game models under government subsidies. The models' optimal solutions are solved and numerically simulated. The results indicate that increasing the government subsidy on price would be more beneficial to the market demand and social welfare. Both green sensitivity and green preference improvement can synergistically amplify this effect, and the effect is more significant by the latter. When green logistics costs are shared between the manufacturer, retailer, and consumers, improving green sensitivities, green preference and government subsidies would all help consumers bear a higher green logistics price. The results also reveal that being dominated by the enterprise with lower green sensitivity would be more advantageous. When the dominant structure is given, improving follower's green sensitivity is more beneficial to the increase of social welfare than improving leader's.