Fairness Concern Research Articles

Artificial Intelligence, Discrimination, Fairness, and Other Moral Concerns

Should the input data of artificial intelligence (AI) systems include factors such as race or sex when these factors may be indicative of morally significant facts? More importantly, is it wrong to rely on the output of AI tools whose input includes factors such as race or sex? And is it wrong to rely on the output of AI systems when it is correlated with factors such as race or sex (whether or not its input includes such factors)? The answers to these questions are controversial. In this paper, I argue for the following claims. First, since factors such as race or sex are not morally significant in themselves, including such factors in the input data, or relying on output that includes such factors or is correlated with them, is neither objectionable (for example, unfair) nor commendable in itself. Second, sometimes (but not always) there are derivative reasons against such actions due to the relationship between factors such as race or sex and facts that are morally significant (ultimately) in themselves. Finally, even if there are such derivative reasons, they are not necessarily decisive since there are sometimes also countervailing reasons. Accordingly, the moral status of the above actions is contingent.

A low-carbon supply chain pricing mechanism considering CSR under carbon cap-and-trade policy.

In the context of environmental deterioration and people's growing environmental protection awareness, governments or regions have put forward corresponding carbon emission reduction policies. Among them, the carbon trading mechanism, as an effective means to promote enterprises to implement emission reduction measures, plays a crucial role in regulating enterprise behavior and promoting social sustainable development. Since various industries and sectors support each other in social and economic development, it is more reasonable to study the carbon emission reduction optimization decisions of society and enterprises from the perspective of the supply chain. To achieve the carbon reduction target of the supply chain system, manufacturing enterprises usually need to incur additional costs to invest in emission reduction technologies, and retail enterprises also need to conduct low-carbon publicity to increase product market share. On one hand, considering the impact of the government's emission reduction constraints and consumers' low-carbon preferences, manufacturers will take corporate social responsibility (CSR) into consideration to enhance product competitiveness. On the other hand, smaller retailers are more concerned about being treated fairly than about their own profits due to the extra cost of low-carbon advertising. In this paper, considering the background of carbon trading, the manufacturer's CSR and retailer's fairness concern behavior are introduced into the decision-making process of the low-carbon supply chain (LCSC), and the relevant emission reduction decision-making model is constructed by using Stackelberg game theory and backward derivation method. Through comparative analysis of relevant parameters, members' profits and utilities, this paper focuses on the influence of CSR and fairness concerns on system decision-making. The results show that the optimal way for LCSC decision-making is to cooperate with fair-concerned retailers and manufacturers with CSR. When manufacturers consider social responsibility within a certain range and retailers bear part of the cost of social responsibility as followers, it can not only effectively improve the emission reduction level of the supply chain and the profits of each entity, but also help to increase the enthusiasm of each entity for carbon emission reduction and the overall social welfare.

Pricing policies of dual-channel green supply chain: considering manufacturers’ dual behavioural preferences and government subsidies

As the green economy and e-commerce evolve, some manufacturers begin to engage in green production and use online direct channels to enhance competitiveness. However, the additional cost of green production makes manufacturers often show dual behavioural preferences of fairness concern and risk aversion when making decisions. Based on this, this study constructs the optimal pricing model of a dual-channel green supply chain, considering dual behavioural preferences of manufacturers’ fairness concern and risk aversion. In addition, no government subsidy, government research and development cost subsidy and green degree subsidy are also considered. This paper uses the Stackelberg game to find the optimal solution for the model. The findings illustrate that (1) Government subsidy mechanisms cannot coordinate the effects of manufacturers’ dual behavioural preferences on pricing policies of a dual-channel green supply chain. (2) Under the three different government subsidy conditions, manufacturers’ fairness concern and risk aversion will all reduce the green degree of products and online direct price of products. (3) The government research and development cost subsidy and green degree subsidy can both improve the green degree of products, offline retail price, market demand and members’ expected profits.

Tipping the balance between fairness and efficiency through temporoparietal stimulation

Maximizing the welfare of society requires distributing goods between groups of people with different preferences. Such decisions are difficult because different moral principles impose irreconcilable solutions. For example, utilitarian efficiency (maximize overall outcome across individuals) may need trade-off against Rawlsian fairness norms (maximize the outcome for the worst-off individual). We identify a brain mechanism enabling decision-makers to solve such trade-offs between efficiency and fairness using separate neuroimaging and sham-controlled brain stimulation experiments. As activity in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) increases, people are more likely to implement the Rawlsian fairness criterion rather than efficiency or inequality concerns. Strikingly, reducing TPJ excitability with brain stimulation reduces the concern for fairness in fairness-efficiency trade-offs. Moreover, the reduced fairness concerns statistically relate to stimulation-induced reductions in perspective-taking skills as measured in a separate task. Together, our findings not only reveal the neural underpinning of efficiency-fairness trade-offs but also recast the role of TPJ in social decision-making by showing that its perspective-taking function serves to promote fairness for the worst-off rather than efficiency or equality.

Differential Games between a Brand Manufacturer and an Internet Celebrity Regarding Fairness Concerns

With the rapid growth of social media and live-streaming technology, live-stream selling has become integral to the digital economy. Using differential game theory, this paper examines how fairness concerns impact the profits of internet celebrities and brand manufacturers under the “pure commission” model. We analyzed no fairness concern, gap fairness concern, and self-due fairness concern models, to investigate the optimal decisions and corresponding profits for an internet celebrity and a brand manufacturer. The results show that the internet celebrity earned the highest profits with low commission rates under the self-due fairness concern model, whereas higher commission rates yielded higher profits for the internet celebrity under the gap fairness concern model. Simultaneously, fairness concerns significantly affected the cooperation stability and long-term benefits, motivating the internet celebrity to maintain efficient collaborations with the brand manufacturer. Furthermore, the self-due fairness concern model was more practical than the gap fairness concern model.

Supply Chain Coordination of New Energy Vehicles under a Novel Shareholding Strategy

As important methods of ecofriendly transportation, the supply chain coordination of new energy vehicles (NEVs) is an important issue in the field of sustainability. This study constructs a Stackelberg game composed of a power battery supplier and an NEV manufacturer. To better describe the coordination relationship in the NEV supply chain, we introduce the Nash bargaining framework into the fairness concern preference utility function. Through a comprehensive discussion of shareholding ratios and external environment factors, we discover that the traditional shareholding strategy fails to coordinate the NEV supply chain effectively, as enterprises seek to avoid losing management control, which occurs when excessive shares are held by others. In this context, this study proposes a novel industry–university–research (IUR) shareholding strategy, which can more easily achieve supply chain coordination and improve social welfare. In particular, this study reveals the superiority of the novel strategy in eliminating the double-marginal effect caused by high fairness concern preference among NEV enterprises. Based on these facts, we provide enterprises with optimal strategies under different conditions and offer a government-optimal subsidy to maximize the social welfare function.

Behavior-based optimal refund policy under advance selling: an analysis of the impact of loss fairness concerns

Buying and returning products can result in losses for both transaction parties, and a partial refund policy affects the loss difference. If consumers feel the policy is unfair, they can easily trigger their inequity aversion to loss. This study analyzes the effects of consumers’ loss fairness concerns on a two-period partial refund policy in advance selling. We develop a mathematical framework in which a firm sells products to consumers in advance, and consumers decide when to buy. The firm allows pre-purchased consumers to return the products in the spot period, resulting in potential losses for both parties. Considering fair-minded consumers, we first show how the firm responds to loss fairness concerns to make an optimal partial refund policy. We then discuss whether the firm is affected by loss fairness concerns. We find that when the degree of fairness concern exceeds a certain threshold, consumers’ loss fairness concerns negatively affect the firm. Besides, we propose a fairness-mitigating mechanism to relieve the negative effect on the firm, which might benefit both parties. Our analysis and results first provide management insights into the importance of incorporating loss fairness concerns in advance selling and the influence on partial refund policy.

Impact of fairness concerns on resource-sharing decisions: A comparative analysis using evolutionary game models in manufacturing enterprises

In recent years, the resource-sharing model has developed rapidly, and manufacturing enterprises have paid more attention to profit distribution and resource investment. Studying the role of fairness concern behaviour in enterprise resource-sharing decisions can provide strategic references for enterprises to implement resource-sharing. This article considers the fairness concern behaviour of resource-sharing enterprises and constructs two symmetric evolutionary game models for resource-sharing. Based on the resource-sharing strategy when the enterprise is fair and neutral, a comparative study is conducted on the impact of fairness concern behaviour on the resource-sharing equilibrium strategy. MATLAB is used for numerical simulation. The analysis results indicate that: (1) the system cost coefficient, information level coefficient, information loss coefficient, resource conversion ability coefficient, resource collaboration ability coefficient, and penalty factor all have an impact on the strategic evolution results of both parties in the game enterprise, (2) fairness concerns include heterogeneity, directionality, and reinforcement, which affect the resource-sharing strategies of enterprises. This study provides a reference for shared decision-making in manufacturing enterprises and provides recommendations for their business development.

Fairness Concerns in App Reviews: A Study on AI-based Mobile Apps

Fairness Concerns in App Reviews: A Study on AI-based Mobile Apps

Optimal decisions and coordination of a supply chain in the hybrid recycling mode with traceability and fairness concern

Considering the case of recycling competition between a manufacturer and a retailer, we construct game models under centralised and decentralised decision-making with or without fairness concern, respectively. By comparatively analysing the optimal decisions and profits under the three models, we design an improved two-part tariff contract to realise supply chain coordination. We have the following findings: First, in the supply chain with traceability, consumers’ preference for traceability and the impact of traceability on recycling are not only beneficial to the environment but also to each enterprise. Second, the retailer’s concern for fairness can harm the profits of the manufacturer and system. Moreover, the retailer’s disproportionate focus on fairness of the distribution of revenues hinders the introduction and development of the traceability system, leading to lower recycling volume and demand. Third, the traceability system is most efficient under centralised decision-making, attaining the highest traceability level, recycling volume, and system profit. The retail price and manufacturer’s recycling price are lower than those under decentralised decision-making. Our findings also suggest that improved two-part tariff contract can enhance the chain members’ performance. While fairness concern and fierce recycling competition hinder implementation of the coordination mechanism, and improved traceability facilitates the attainment of coordination.

Analysis of green supply chains under fairness concern and differential power structure

PurposeThis study aims to examine how fairness concerns and power structure in dyadic green supply chains impact retail price, supply chain profits and greening level decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops game-theoretic models considering fairness concerns and asymmetric power structures under an iso-elastic demand setting. The research paper employs the Stackelberg game approach, taking into consideration the fairness concern of the channel leader.FindingsThe findings indicate that under fairness, there is an increase in both wholesale and retail prices, as well as greening expenditures. Notably, when comparing the two models (manufacturer Stackelberg and retailer Stackelberg), double marginalization is more pronounced in the retailer Stackelberg setup than in the manufacturer Stackelberg setup. In a traditional supply chain with iso-elastic demand, the follower typically extracts higher profit compared to the leader; however, our results show that, under fairness conditions, the leader achieves higher profit than the follower. Additionally, our study suggests that supply chain coordination is unattainable in a fairness setup. This paper provides insights for managers on the optimal supply chain structure and the level of fairness to maximize profit.Originality/valueThis paper investigates the impact of a leader's fairness on the optimal decisions within a green supply chain, an area that has received limited attention previously. Additionally, the study investigates how fairness concerns manifest in distinct power dynamics, specifically, in the contexts of manufacturer Stackelberg and retailer Stackelberg.

Participant fairness concern and cost‐sharing‐based dual‐channel low‐carbon supply chain management

AbstractConsidering consumer channel preferences, our paper establishes a two‐echelon differential low‐carbon supply chain model and discusses the effects of member's cost‐sharing and fairness concerns on equilibrium results. From a static perspective, the results indicate that retailers' fairness concern behavior will lead to a decrease in pricing and participants' efforts while manufacturers cost‐sharing strategy will only enhance retailers' advertising efforts. From a dynamic perspective, products' greenness, long‐term benefits of manufacturers and retailers, and social welfare will gradually increase and eventually saturate over time. In most cases, manufacturer‐to‐retailer cost‐sharing is a win–win strategy that not only enhances the long‐term interests but also realizes the greening and upgrading of the supply chain.

Fairness and Transparency in One-to-Many Bargaining with Complementarity: An Experimental Study

We report an experiment designed to study bargaining behavior between one buyer and multiple sellers with complementarity and how it is influenced by fairness concern and information transparency. We base our setup on a structured alternating-offer bargaining model in which a buyer procures complementary items from two heterogeneous sellers with endogenous choice of the order of bargaining. In addition, we implemented an information transparency manipulation regarding whether the sellers were informed about each other’s offers/counteroffers with the buyer. Experimental behavior exhibited deviations from equilibrium predictions that did not differ significantly by information condition, suggesting that sellers were not significantly influenced by direct social comparison between each other. Further analysis suggests that each seller demanded splitting the value of the deal approximately half-half with the buyer as a normative fairness benchmark. The buyers, on the other hand, did not have a demand for fairness that was based on a fairness benchmark.

Logistics service decision for e-commerce supply chain with fairness concern under uncertain environment

In this paper, we construct a two-echelon supply chain composed of an e-commerce platform and a manufacturer. We investigate the impact of manufacturer’s fairness concern (MFC) on e-commerce supply chain logistics service decisions under an uncertain environment. Given the uncertainty of the market environment, we depict unit cost of product and logistics service elasticity as uncertain variables. We construct four game-theoretical models, i.e. the manufacturer or the platform undertakes logistics service without and with considering the MFC, and compare the equilibrium solutions through numerical analysis. The results demonstrate that providing logistics services through an e-commerce platform increases the profits of all supply chain participants, regardless of whether the MFC is considered or not. Furthermore, we discover that the manufacturer will not always benefit from the MFC, the MFC can decrease the expected profits of supply chain participants. Interestingly, an increase in the level of environmental uncertainty does not necessarily imply a threat to the interests of supply chain participants. Under an uncertain environment, every supply chain participant needs to consider its fairness concern behavior and coordinate with logistics service strategies.

Study of the Impact of Fairness Concern on Low Carbon Dual Channel Supply Chain

A supplier-dominated secondary low-carbon dual channel supply chain is used as the object of study, and the expected demand function is constructed when the seller has the advantage of market information in the information asymmetry situation, in order to explore the impact of fairness concern on supply chain decision making. The utility functions in the three scenarios were analyzed and compared, and mathematical simulations were conducted according to market demand information available to the seller and the effort input of decision-making subject. Studies have shown that: Whichever decision-making subject has the fairness concern behavior does not affect the supplier as a higher profit maker; information on market demand also needs to be taken into account when considering the impact of the level of fairness concern on profits of the decision maker. When suppliers misjudge market demand, wholesale price increases are slowed if sellers have equity concerns, and sellers may engage in retaliatory behavior if equity demands are not met. In addition, low carbon demand is profitable for suppliers in supplier-led supply chains regardless of market demand, and low carbon sales efforts are not necessarily profitable for retailers.

Effects of Imprecise Cognitive Biases and Free-Riding on the Pricing Decisions of Dual-Channel Supply Chain Members

Nowadays, to cater the increasing green customers, firms have switched to green manufacturing. In a dual-channel green supply chain (DCGSC), customers experience products at offline stores and buy them online (free-riding). Often imprecise cognitive biases (“fairness concern” and “overconfidence”) are observed among the supply chain (SC) members. With these facts, this study introduces the free-riding and above cognitive biases in a DCGSC with a manufacturer selling a green product through own online and offline retail channels and examines their effects. A centralized and four decentralized models (for green and nongreen products) are formulated depending upon channel members’ cognitive biases individually and jointly with and without free-riding. The fuzzy objectives and constraints are made deterministic using expectation and possibility measures, respectively. Models are solved and illustrated numerically. The results indicate that free-riding is harmful and beneficial to retailer and manufacturer, respectively. Manufacturer’s overconfidence enhances the retailer’s profit but decreases or increases own profit depending upon the salvage value. Retailer’s fairness concern is catastrophic for manufacturer but beneficial for her. Product greening increases manufacturer’s profit than the carbon tax regulation for lower emissions. In addition to above observations, for maximum profit, management should not go for greening beyond an optimum level.

Fairness Perceptions, Happiness, and Behavioral Intentions in Trade Fairs: An Investigation from the Relational Model of Justice

ABSTRACT Purpose This research aims to examine how an exhibitor manages its relationship with visitors in trade fairs to achieve desired outcomes. Drawing on the relational (group-value) model of justice, this research argues that visitors’ procedural and distributive fairness perceptions impact their happiness, relationship commitment, and behavioral intentions with exhibitors. Methodology Data comprising 350 business visitors from eight trade fairs related to the electronics, telecommunications, automobiles, apparel, and renewable energy industries were analyzed. Findings The findings show that while procedural fairness perceptions significantly impact visitors’ happiness, distributive fairness perceptions do not have a significant relationship. Happiness leads to a positive relationship between visitors’ commitment and behavioral outcomes. Originality/Value/Contribution This research is one of the earliest attempts to evaluate the role of fairness perceptions and happiness in the context of trade fairs. The results also indicate that small-scale visitors show less concern for procedural fairness than large-scale visitors, but they show a higher tendency for relationship commitment and behavioral intentions than large-scale visitors.

Low-Carbon supply chain optimisation with carbon emission reduction level and warranty period: nash bargaining fairness concern

This study incorporates fairness concern in a low-carbon supply chain coordination mechanism where a single manufacturer sells its product to consumers through a single retailer. We develop four different scenarios of the Stackelberg master-slave game utility model—both members are neutral (NN), the manufacturer (FN) or retailer (NF) has fairness concern, and both are not neutral (FF), where the Nash bargaining fairness reference is leveraged to capture the impact of fairness preference on low-carbon supply chain optimisation decision-making profits, level of carbon emission reduction, warranty period, and revenue-sharing. Finally, numerical studies are conducted to quantify the impact of the Nash bargaining fairness concern. Research shows that: (1) fairness concern made it worse for the retailer but beneficial for the manufacturer and the system. (2) fairness concern causes a reduction in the level of carbon emission reduction and warranty period. However, the reduction of carbon emission reduction trading price and a certain range of revenue sharing effectively reduces the impact of fairness concern on members. (3) The revenue-sharing contract effectively reduces the negative impacts of fairness concern on supply chain members. The paper is a guide for enterprises development and cooperation but also provides empirical evidence for the government.

Joint optimization on green investment and contract design for sustainable supply chains with fairness concern

Joint optimization on green investment and contract design for sustainable supply chains with fairness concern

Bargaining in mobile app supply chain considering members’ fairness concern attitudes

The fast-developing mobile app industry has brought challenges to service pricing and profit allocation problems. This study constructs a four-stage game model consisting of a brand mobile app supplier as well as a distributor and takes members’ distributional fairness concern into consideration. We analyze the equilibrium revenue retaining ratio bargaining result, service price as well as the investigation and regulation (I&R) level in different fairness concern models and explore the managers’ employment decisions of supply chain members at equilibrium. Through analysis, we obtain several theoretical contributions and managerial insights. Firstly, while the supplier’s distributional fairness concern drops down both the service price and I&R level, the distributor’s fairness concern exerts no effect on both decisions. Secondly, we show that at equilibrium, the supply chain members would sink into prisoner’s dilemma when the cost coefficient of I&R activity is relatively low. When the cost coefficient is relatively high, the supplier would obtain higher profit while the distributor would suffer profit loss compared with fairness neutral situation and unfortunately the profit gain of the supplier is overwhelmed by the profit loss of the distributor, resulting profit loss of the whole supply chain. Thirdly, we suggest the distributor in mobile app supply chain to control I&R cost for the purpose of attracting the supplier to sign fairness neutral commitment contract, which can avoid supply chain inefficiency. Besides, the government is advised to take intervention measures when the I&R cost coefficient is relatively high.