Collaborative Green Innovation of Livestock Product Three-Level Supply Chain Traceability System: A Value Co-Creation Perspective

Abstract

To enhance the health and stability of livestock product supply chains, it is imperative to augment product sustainability and satisfy food safety requirements through collaborative green innovation. Digital traceability technology amalgamates information and resources from stakeholders in the supply chain, facilitating knowledge sharing and product tracking throughout the entire process to purify the supply chain environment. Augmenting communication and trust among supply chains paves the way for green innovation, thereby yielding value-added benefits. Consequently, this paper formulates a simulation model for manufacturers, retailers, and consumers—three pivotal stakeholders in the traceability process of livestock products—from a value co-creation standpoint. It also incorporates a contract penalty mechanism to probe the collaborative green innovation process among various entities involved in the livestock product supply chain. System simulation is employed to emulate the evolution path of collaborative green innovation in the livestock product supply chain under the value co-creation perspective. Subsequently, a stepwise penalty mechanism, green incentive mechanism, and fair distribution mechanism are proposed for stakeholders to actualize collaborative green innovation and value creation. The findings reveal that: (1) the collaborative green behavior between suppliers, retailers, and consumers is influenced by factors such as value co-creation excess returns, innovative technology costs like traceability, cost sharing among stakeholders, and a certain threshold of government penalties. (2) A balanced distribution of excess returns and cost-sharing among stakeholders fosters the evolution of a green collaborative state in the supply chain, thereby achieving sustainable development with value chain enhancement and ecological optimization.

The Implications of the Spillover Effect Related to Green Co-Creation in a Supply Chain

“…Li, et al [3], Ding, et al [15], etc. √ × Hsieh and Lathifah [20], Chen, et al [21], Lu, et al [24], etc.…”

“…According to S-D logic, value co-creation highlights the essential roles of all stakeholders in a business process, ranging from suppliers to customers [30][31][32]. Green co-creation, a hot research topic in recent years [3,5,15,39], has seldom been studied in contexts that include both upstream and downstream stakeholders, such as in supply chains. This contrasts sharply with the abundant research on collaborations among various partners in the existing literature on green supply chains [13,[40][41][42].…”

“…Building on this, Shi et al [5] employed an empirical approach to examine the effects of focal firms' co-creation with suppliers, competitors, and retailers. Ding et al [15] focused on the livestock product supply chain, utilizing system simulation to investigate the impacts of cooperation between manufacturers, sellers, and customers on green innovation and supply chain health. Finally, Yao et al [39] examined how suppliers' green innovation types influence consumers' willingness to participate in green co-creation.…”

“…Meanwhile, NIO once had a contract manufacturing agreement with Jianghuai Automobile Co. (JAC), a traditional automaker, which also competes with NIO in the market with its own products. Based on the dual-channel [56,57] and green supply chain literature [3,5,15,39], this article makes a few assumptions to clarify the situation. Assumption 1.…”

“…It is important to note that green co-creation is a powerful tool for businesses to meet the growing demand for environmentally friendly products [3,15]; after all, the ultimate success of these green initiatives is determined by customers in the market [16]. By engaging in green co-creation, businesses not only meet the environmental expectations of their customers but also enhance their competitiveness.…”