Corporate social responsibility(CSR)is one of the most important strategies in operations management.Recently,risk events caused by the CSR violations of suppliers have brought huge losses for downstream buyers in both traditional supply chains and platform supply chains.Therefore,how to decrease the violations of suppliers trough efficient CSR management decisions has become an important research issue.Moreover,the decision scenarios and influencing factors are diverse under different supply chains,which challenges the CSR decisions of buyers.This thesis conducts an in-depth study on the decisions toward supplier CSR management in both traditional supply chain and the platform supply chain.The main chapters of the thesis include five aspects: 1)Supply contract design regarding CSR in a traditional two-echelon supply chain;2)the optimal strategic of supplier CSR management in a multi-tier supply chain;3)the investment decision of supplier CSR management under a monopoly platform;4)the investment decision of supplier CSR management under platform competition;5)the driving factors of supplier CSR management in platform supply chain.The detailed contents are as follows.Chapter 3 analyzes supply contract design regarding CSR in a traditional twoechelon supply chain.In the context of asymmetric CSR cost information of suppliers,this chapter analyzes the optimal contract parameters of integrators when providing screening contracts or pooling contracts and compares their impacts on profits and CSR level.The results find that different contracts have different effects on the CSR level of different types of suppliers.A low-cost supplier’s CSR level is the highest when a screening contract is provided,while a high-cost supplier’s CSR level reaches the peak under a pooling contract.If pursuing profit maximization,the integrator should choose to provide a screening contract.When the integrator needs to ensure a higher average level of CSR,a pooling contract should be chosen.The findings also show that service cost is an important factor affecting the CSR level of the supplier,and only when the suppliers’ service cost is low,will suppliers actively fulfill their CSR.Chapter 4 discusses the optimal strategic of supplier CSR management in a multitier supply chain.This chapter develops a game theory model with a multi-tier supply chain,which consists of a Tier 0 buyer,a direct Tier 1 supplier and an indirect Tier 2supplier.To reduce the CSR violations of Tier 2 supplier,the Tier 0 buyer can either provide funding to the Tier 1 supplier(delegation strategy)or fund the Tier 2 supplier directly(control strategy).We theoretically analyze the optimal strategy under two different supply chain leaderships: Tier 1 leads Tier 2,and Tier 2 leads Tier 1,and further discuss the impact of supply chain leadership.Unlike empirical studies arguing that delegation is more effective when the Tier 1 leads Tier 2,we find that when the funding factor is uniform among suppliers(exogenous),the control strategy is more likely to ensure a lower violation probability than the delegation strategy.Besides,when the loss of Tier 0 buyer due to violations in Tier 2 is relatively small,the buyer may adopt the strategy with a higher violation probability to maximize his profit.In addition,we also consider information asymmetry between the Tier 0 buyer and Tier 2 supplier,and find that the buyer is more inclined to choose the delegation strategy if he is more uncertain about the Tier 2 supplier.Chapter 5 studies the investment decision of supplier CSR management under a monopoly platform.This chapter develops a game model for a monopolistic two-sided platform and analyze the impacts of network externalities(including customer network externality and supplier network externality)and risk aversion on CSR investment decisions.The analytical results show that contrary to our intuition,the higher strength of network externalities does not necessarily stimulate the platform to invest in CSR.When the strength of customer network externality is high,CSR investment will have a “dilution effect”;that is,investing in CSR will reduce the number of users and the profit accumulated by the platform.Conversely,risk aversion always has an “incentive effect” on CSR investment,thereby improving the platform’s willingness to invest in CSR.Second,the network externalities of both suppliers and customers will increase the platform’s price.Interestingly,when the strength of customer network externality is high,the platform still attracts more customers,even at a high price.Finally,intuitively,we believe that risk aversion inspires the platform to invest in CSR and thus improves customer utility and customer surplus.Instead,our analysis indicates that risk aversion will damage customer surplus when the strength of customer network externality is high.Chapter 6 investigates the investment decision of supplier CSR management under platform competition.In a competitive environment,CSR investment greatly affects the demand and profits of the platform itself and its competitors.Therefore,how to effectively strengthen investment has become an important research issue.By constructing two competitive platforms,this chapter focuses on analyzing the joint impacts of network externalities and demand externalities brought about by competition on CSR investment.The results show that competition can promote CSR investment of platforms.When the losses of CSR violations are high,both platforms invest in CSR due to the existence of competition,but when there is no competition,platforms may give up investing in CSR.Counterintuitively,we find that an increase in demand externalities reduces the demand of platform investing in CSR.Finally,we find that an increase in supplier network externality consistently leads platforms to be more reluctant to invest in CSR.However,when the supplier network externality is small,as the consumer network externality increases,the platform will be more willing to invest in CSR.Chapter 7 analyzes the driving factors of supplier CSR management in the platform supply chain.In this chapter,through in-depth interviews with four typical platform companies in China,we innovatively identify the driving factors that influence platforms’ decision toward supplier CSR management.Adopting multi-case analysis,we find that four driving factors can promote platforms to strengthen supplier CSR management,including two external driving factors: industry competition intensity and external constraints,and two internal driving factors: platform risk aversion attitude and platform leadership.The intensity of industry competition motivates platforms to strengthen CSR investment to obtain differentiated competitive advantages,while the external constraints increase the cost of CSR violations,thus prompting platforms to strengthen CSR management.Risk aversion make platforms avoid the possible negative impact of CSR violations,and platform leadership determines the public’s higher requirements for companies.Therefore,they all have a positive impact on the supplier CSR management.Finally,this chapter finds that network externalities negatively moderate the positive effects of the above-mentioned driving factors. |