Risk-averse behavior and incentive policies: A new perspective on spatial–temporal traceability supervision in construction logistics supply chains

Abstract

Spatial-temporal decision support systems (STDSS) serve as a crucial strategy for enhancing operational governance and mitigating risk within construction logistics. However, construction supply chains involve many opaque stakeholders, hindering whole industry compliance monitoring. This research formulates a tripartite evolutionary game model that scrutinizes the strategic interactions among government regulators, carriers, and contractors, thereby offering insights into the collaborative supervision outcomes shaped by these stakeholder engagements. Government regulators choose intelligent supervision incentives versus regular oversight. Carriers decide whether to invest in STDSS or not. Contractors cooperate by enrolling or declining STDSS. As key STDSS investors, carriers’ decisions are investigated under varying risk preferences in an extension model. This examines how government incentives influence long-term intelligent supervision and risk aversion behavior emergence to improve safety and quality across construction supply chains. Our findings indicate that increased adverse events motivate government regulators to adopt STDSS incentives for oversight, though carriers and contractors are not necessarily prompted to implement STDSS themselves. Escalating risk aversion reduces carrier STDSS adoption likelihood as they maintain basic services. Carriers perceiving contractor free riding as unfair competition also demotivates STDSS rollout. Although larger subsidies initially raise STDSS implementation probability, carriers become unwilling to adopt STDSS over time even with greater subsidies. In summary, adverse events drive regulator but not necessarily carrier and contractor STDSS adoption, while risk aversion, perceived fairness and changing subsidy effectiveness over time shape carrier decisions.