Competition and Coordination of Regional Fresh Supply Chain Under Government Regulation

Chao Zhao (), Yongmei Chi, Nini Gao and Jixiang Song
Additional contact information
Chao Zhao: School of Management, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin 300134, China
Yongmei Chi: School of Management, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin 300134, China
Nini Gao: School of Management, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin 300134, China
Jixiang Song: Key Laboratory for Mechanics in Fluid-Solid Coupling Systems, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

Games, 2025, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: Fresh agricultural products have significant seasonality and perishability, and their cross-regional sales often face differences in market demand, price, and sales volume. In the context of government quality regulation, competition among retailers in different regions drives supply chain members to improve product quality, expand sales, and reduce losses. However, conflicts of interest under decentralized decision-making may lead to overall inefficiency. This article constructs a supply chain model consisting of a single Manufacturer and two regional Retailers to study the quality competition and coordination mechanism of cross-regional fresh food supply chains under government supervision. By comparing centralized and decentralized decision-making, it is found that although quality improvement in decentralized mode helps enhance competitiveness and sales performance, it is difficult to effectively increase profits and may even lead to a decline in profits. Therefore, this article proposes a cost-sharing contract to achieve supply chain coordination. Research has shown that this contract can effectively improve the overall profit of the supply chain and achieve Pareto improvement; under high market demand and strict regulatory penalties, the total profit of the supply chain increases, but the dominant Retailer benefits more, which can easily trigger the “Matthew effect”. The research results reveal the comprehensive impact of quality investment, contract coordination, market demand fluctuations, and regulatory intensity on supply chain performance, providing theoretical basis and management insights for improving the collaborative efficiency and policy design of cross-regional fresh food supply chains.

Keywords: supply chain; retailer competition; coordination of supply chain; regional fresh supply chain; government regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C C7 C70 C71 C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/16/5/53/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/16/5/53/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jgames:v:16:y:2025:i:5:p:53-:d:1768105

Access Statistics for this article

Games is currently edited by Ms. Susie Huang

More articles in Games from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().