Jia-Cai Liu

By researching how to select green products for express packaging, this study provides a scientific decision-making basis and methodology for logistics enterprises, encouraging them to accelerate green transformation and meet consumer demands. This article proposes a method for logistics companies to evaluate green products using specific indicators. First, triangular fuzzy numbers and their α-levels are incorporated into the calculation process. Second, when determining the weights of each indicator, both the priority and its relative degree are considered, enhancing the evaluation in relevant scenarios. Finally, an improved approach for calculating positive and negative ideal solutions in the TOPSIS method is presented. Through numerical examples, we demonstrate that the value of α in the improved fuzzy TOPSIS method proposed in this study critically influences logistics enterprises’ selection of container bag suppliers.

Purpose: Farmer-supermarket direct purchase (FSDP) is one of the significant innovative modes in the circulation of agricultural products. The previous studies on the FSDP mode were mainly premised on the assumption of power symmetry among cooperative players. Nevertheless, in reality, power asymmetry often exists among players because of restricted coalitions and diverse input resources. In this research, the influence of power asymmetry on profit distribution among various players in FSDP is explored. Design/methodology/approach: The power asymmetry within FSDP is explored in two aspects: the distinct status of coalition structure and the varying degrees of dependence among players. Since FSDP is a typical cooperative mode, an average tree solution (abbreviated as “A-T solution”) of a cooperative game with a restricted coalition structure and the tripartite mutual deterrence model with a dependency factor are analyzed. Subsequently, the corresponding profit distribution strategies of FSDP are provided. Findings: This research demonstrates that the cooperative coalition structure and/or location and the degree of dependence on other players can affect their profit-earning capacity during the FSDP process. Furthermore, the players' ability to distribute profits is negatively associated with the degree of interdependence (dependency factor). It is shown by the fact that cooperatives are at the center of FSDP, as farmers in China are a dispersed and powerless group; in a word, the FSDP supply chain is a restricted coalition structure. Even in an arbitrary coalition structure, farmers still remain in a weak position and lack the power of speech in the distribution of profits. Therefore, enhancing the position of farmers is necessary to stabilize cooperative relationships in supply chains. Research limitations/implications: These methods have broad potential applications to research power asymmetry in supply chain management. However, it is only applicable in situations where significant information on alliance structure and the dependence degree is available. Originality/value: This study concentrates on the factors of power asymmetry and investigates the influence of power asymmetry on the profit distribution among players, thereby expanding the depth and width of the research on FSDP. The key contribution of this paper lies in explaining the “unfair” profit distribution scheme in FSDP from coalition cooperative game and bargaining game theory (a mathematical perspective). It provides a decision-making basis for enhancing the overall position of farmers in the agricultural supply chain.

With the acceleration of fresh food e-commerce development, cold chain logistics for agricultural products has increasingly become a research hotspot. However, limited by the number of orders accepted by enterprises, many cold chain transportation vehicles for agricultural products struggle to reach a full load. This undoubtedly increases transportation costs for agricultural product cold chain logistics enterprises. In order to reduce the cost of transportation and increase the profit of enterprises, this paper will adopt the strategy of building enterprise coalition based on cooperative game theory. By increasing the loading rate of transportation vehicles, it will increase the profit of enterprises. First, utilizing the minimization of overall dissatisfaction among players in profit allocation after coalition participation as the objective function, a model of the equal division contribution values of the trapezoidal fuzzy number will be constructed, which will be used as the profit allocation model for the players. Then, the solution of the model will be provided, and the properties including symmetry are analyzed. Second, by improving the loading rate of cold chain transport vehicles as the key and combining various parameters in the transportation stage of agricultural product cold chain logistics, the coalition profit will be calculated. Finally, using the solution of the equal division contribution value of the trapezoidal fuzzy number in the cooperative game as the allocation strategy, the obtained profit will be distributed to each enterprise participating in the coalition. The results show that when dealing with cooperative profit allocation problems in similar scenarios, the solutions of the equal division contribution value of the trapezoidal fuzzy number are highly reliable and adaptable. The method presented in this paper can not only increase the profit of enterprises but also minimize the overall dissatisfaction of all enterprises with the allocation result.

With the rapid development of e-commerce, the traditional trade mode of forest products has undergone significant changes. Logistics as a key factor to support e-commerce trade is particularly important to build a reasonable e-commerce logistics model of forest products. In the logistics service industry, the issue of cooperative profit allocation of logistics alliance has been crucial and prevalent. However, logistics alliances often face the problem of incomplete information, such as the ambiguity of transportation cost and driving distance, which makes it difficult to effectively apply many classical cooperative game solutions. Therefore, this paper introduces an improved Shapley value for cooperative games in fuzzy situations regarding unclear profit allocation in e-commerce logistics alliance of forest products. This value maximizes the satisfaction of the players by minimizing the contribution excess, according to which the trapezoidal fuzzy number least square contribution is calculated. Based on this, we replace the marginal contribution of the classical Shapley value with this least square contribution, thus creating the improved Shapley value with trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Through the verification of actual cases, this method not only has theoretical value, but also provides effective guidance for the actual profit allocation of e-commerce logistics alliance of forest products, which helps to promote the stability and sustainable development of alliance.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly sound supply chain system and thriving e-commerce, it is becoming increasingly common for retailers to introduce their own brands of products and for manufacturers to open up direct online sales channels. The existence of these two supply chain decisions is complex and involves interactions. Moreover, the introduction of online direct sales channels will bring about differences in prices and service quality between channels, resulting in a free-riding effect on the internet. However, existing related research rarely considers the role of network free-riding effect in this supply chain system. This article integrates the network free-riding effect into the supply chain model by setting the network free-riding rate. According to whether retailers introduce their own brand products and manufacturers open up online direct sales channels, four supply chain scenarios are formed, and the reverse recursion method is used to obtain the profit functions for each of these four scenarios. Then, a Stackelberg game model is established to determine the response strategies of manufacturers and retailers based on the changes in profits of manufacturers caused by retailer decisions and the changes in profits of retailers caused by manufacturer decisions. Through analysis, it was discovered that a key factor affecting decision-making within the supply chain system is the retailer’s channel advantage. When the channel advantage of retailers is strong, manufacturers will open up online direct sales channels to weaken the channel advantage of retailers. Retailers will not introduce their own brand products but are more inclined to cooperate with manufacturers. When the channel advantage of retailers is weak, retailers will attract consumers and consolidate their channel advantage by introducing high-quality, low-priced private label products, while manufacturers will maintain cooperation with retailers and adopt a strategy of not opening up online direct sales channels. We also analyzed the Nash equilibrium state under different channel advantages of retailers.

Intense market competition has driven small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector to collaborate and form supply chain coalitions, which can improve the information flow and resource sharing and significantly enhance supply chain management efficiency. However, the distribution of cooperative benefits poses a core challenge for the long-term stability of coalitions. This paper addresses the impact of dynamic changes in complex business environments by utilizing triangular fuzzy numbers to represent the value of coalition, effectively depicting the uncertainty and ambiguity in the cooperation process. Compared to traditional models (which do not use triangular fuzzy numbers), this model is better suited to dynamic changes, offering flexible response mechanisms that ensure adaptability and fairness in the decision-making process. In addition, considering the influence of each member’s weight in the coalition, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to determine the weights. With the goal of minimizing the dissatisfaction of enterprises in benefit distribution, a least square contribution with triangular fuzzy numbers is constructed to replace the marginal contribution of the classical Banzhaf value, and an improved Banzhaf value based on the player’s triangular fuzzy number-weighted excess contribution is proposed to arrive at a fair and reasonable benefit allocation strategy in order to enhance the long-term stability and cooperative benefits of coalition. By analyzing an example of the supply chain coalition, the effectiveness of the proposed improved Banzhaf value is verified, which satisfies the uniqueness, the individual rationality, and the group rationality. It not only promotes the level of risk management and decision making under the uncertainty conditions of complex business, but also deepens the theoretical foundation of cooperative game theory and expands its possibilities in practical applications and future development.

A quadratic programming model is constructed for solving the fuzzy cooperative games with coalition values expressed by triangular fuzzy numbers, which will be abbreviated to TFN‐typed cooperative games from now on. Based on the concept of α‐cut set and the representation theorem for the fuzzy set, the least square distance solution for solving TFN‐typed cooperative games is proposed. The least square distance solution successfully avoids the subtraction operation of TFNs, which may inevitably lead to the amplification of uncertainty and the distortion of decision information. A calculating example related to the profit distribution of logistics coalition is illustrated to show the advantages, validity, and applicability of the proposed method. Besides, the least square distance solution for solving TFN‐typed cooperative games satisfies many important properties of cooperative games, such as uniqueness, additivity, symmetry, and uniqueness.

The primary aim of this paper is to develop one kind of easy and effective method to solve fuzzy cooperative games with coalition values expressed by triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs). This method ensures that each player should receive a TFN-typed fuzzy pay-off from the grand coalition because each coalition value is expressed by a TFN. Using the concept of Alpha-cut sets, an arbitrary TFN’s Alpha-cut set can be shown as an interval. If the 1-cut sets and 0-cut sets of the TFN-typed coalition values are known, we can easily gain some important values, such as the means, the lower limits, and the upper limits of the TFN-typed payoffs via the proposed quadratic programming models and method. Furthermore, it is also easy for us to compute the lower and upper limits of Alpha-cut sets at any confidence levels of the TFN-typed payoffs for any TFN-typed cooperative game through solving the constructed quadratic programming models. Hereby the players’ TFN-typed payoffs for the TFN-typed cooperative game can be explicitly solved via the representation theorem for fuzzy sets. It is easy to prove that the proposed solutions of the fuzzy cooperative games with coalition values expressed by TFNs satisfy some useful and important properties, such as symmetry, additivity, and anonymity. Finally, the validity, applicability and advantages of the proposed method is proved and discussed through a numerical example.