Green Technology Investment with Data-Driven Marketing and Government Subsidy in a Platform Supply Chain

Abstract

Expanding green consumption market and precise data promotion advantages make the platform economy have a significant effect on influencing manufacturers to carry out green R&D and production activities, and government subsidies have a positive incentive effect. In this context, for the studies about platform supply chain management with manufacturer’s green production and the platform’s marketing activities simultaneously are rare, we consider that a manufacturer invests in green technologies to produce products and sell them through a smart platform supply chain by an agency selling or reselling strategy, in which the platform provides data-driven marketing technology to promote green products. Four game models are constructed to study the operational efficiency of the platform supply chain considering selling strategy difference and government subsidy. The results show that: (1) The manufacturer’s green technology and the platform’s data-driven marketing levels, as well as all member’s profits are all influenced by the potential market demand of green products, the sensitivities of consumers to green product attributes, and data analysis technology. (2) The service commission rate charged by the platform plays a main role on the manufacturer’s selling strategy choice, when the service commission rate is low, the manufacturer chooses an agency selling strategy and can obtain more profit, but now the green technology level is not necessarily better than that in the reselling system. With the service commission rate increases, a manufacturer that chooses the reselling strategy can obtain more profit, and the green technology level is better than in the agency selling system. (3) Government subsidy can effectively encourage the manufacturer to improve the green technology level, and now the platform will improve the data-driven marketing level. There is a threshold range of the service commission rate charged by the platform in which the government can guide the manufacturer and the platform to reach an equilibrium selling strategy by regulating the subsidy level.