Purpose

Members in a supply chain account for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in different ways. This paper considers a socially responsible supply chain in which the manufacturer innovates in a sustainable product while the retailer exhibits CSR concerns. This paper aims to investigate how socially responsible behavior, namely, sustainable innovations or CSR concerns, affects the pure profit, environmental impact and social welfare, in such a socially responsible supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper first constructs an integrated case as a benchmark and then develops a Manufacturer-Stackelberg game in a decentralized scenario. The pure profit, environmental impact and social welfare are confirmed and analyzed in centralized and decentralized cases. Moreover, two unique coordinating contracts, i.e. wholesale price discount contract and revenue-sharing contract, are used in this socially responsible supply chain.

Findings

Analytical analysis shows that, under certain conditions, the optimal CSR strategies hold for maximizing pure channel profit, minimizing environmental impact and maximizing social welfare. Whether the performance in a centralized case outnumbers that in a decentralized case depends on the CSR concerns level and environment-friendly degree of the product. In addition, it is found that a wholesale price discount contract is better for the retailer whereas a revenue-sharing contract is better for the manufacturer in pure profit to improve coordinating efficiency.

Practical implications

These results can offer managerial implications to the socially responsible supply chain in terms of pricing decisions, CSR strategies and sustainability innovations. Specifically, under certain conditions, placing more CSR concerns level increases pure channel profit and the social welfare. A balance between the pure profit and the social welfare is hereby achieved for the two socially responsible individuals by designing a proper contract.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first studies so far to combine the CSR concerns strategy and sustainability innovation into a socially responsible supply chain.

中文翻译：

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对社会负责的供应链中的纯利润，环境影响和社会福利的含义

目的

供应链中的成员以不同的方式解释企业社会责任（CSR）。本文考虑了一种对社会负责的供应链，其中制造商在可持续产品方面进行创新，而零售商则表现出对企业社会责任的关注。本文旨在研究在这种对社会负责的供应链中，对社会负责的行为，即可持续创新或对企业社会责任的关注，如何影响纯利润，环境影响和社会福利。

设计/方法/方法

本文首先构建了一个综合案例作为基准，然后在去中心化场景中开发了Manufacturer-Stackelberg游戏。在集中和分散的案例中，对纯利润，环境影响和社会福利进行了确认和分析。此外，在这个对社会负责的供应链中使用了两个独特的协调合同，即批发价格折扣合同和收益分享合同。

发现

分析分析表明，在特定条件下，最佳的企业社会责任策略可以使纯渠道利润最大化，对环境的影响最小，对社会福利的最大化。集中式案例中的性能是否胜过分散式案例中的性能，取决于企业社会责任，这关系到产品的水平和环境友好程度。另外，发现批发价格折扣合同对于零售商而言更好，而收益分享合同对于制造商而言在纯利润方面更好，以提高协调效率。

实际影响

这些结果可以在定价决策，企业社会责任战略和可持续性创新方面为对社会负责的供应链带来管理意义。具体而言，在某些条件下，将更多的CSR关注点置于更高的位置可以增加纯渠道利润和社会福利。因此，通过设计适当的合同，可以为两个对社会负责的人实现纯利润和社会福利之间的平衡。

创意/价值

据作者所知，本文是迄今为止将企业社会责任关注战略和可持续性创新结合到对社会负责的供应链中的第一批研究之一。