Research on Logistics Service Supply Chain Coordination in the Context of Green Innovation

Yuxiang Sun (), Xiaopu Zhang, Xirou Huang and Wenbin Cao
Additional contact information
Yuxiang Sun: Business School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Xiaopu Zhang: Business School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Xirou Huang: Business School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Wenbin Cao: Business School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 2, 1-28

Abstract: With the global advancement of sustainable development concepts, the logistics industry is confronting significant environmental challenges, making green innovation a critical driver for industrial transformation and upgrading. However, during the green innovation process in logistics service supply chains, the differing roles of logistics service integrators and logistics service providers, combined with high costs and uncertain returns, hinder coordination efficiency. Therefore, it is imperative to enhance the coordination of supply chain contracts. Nevertheless, existing literature provides limited insights into the coordination capacities and impacts of different contracts on green innovation in logistics service supply chains. This study develops a Stackelberg game model where the logistics service integrator acts as the leader and logistics service providers serve as followers, examining the effects of cost-sharing contracts, revenue-sharing contracts, and hybrid cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contracts on supply chain coordination. Numerical simulations are employed to validate the findings. The results indicate that hybrid contracts provide the strongest incentives for green innovation among supply chain participants, whereas cost-sharing contracts offer relatively weaker incentives for integrators’ green design innovation. In addition, revenue-sharing contracts and hybrid contracts were effective in reducing the wholesale price of green logistics services, although all three contract types resulted in higher market prices. Finally, all three contract types achieve Pareto improvements in the supply chain, with hybrid contracts maximizing the total profit of the supply chain. This study not only elucidates the incentive mechanisms and relative advantages of different contracts in supply chain collaboration, but also offers critical theoretical and practical insights for designing contracts to foster green innovation in the logistics sector.

Keywords: logistics service supply chain; green innovation; Stackelberg game; cost-sharing contract; revenue-sharing contract (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/646/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/646/ (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:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:646-:d:1567898

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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