Design of coordination contract for quality control-based supply chain under consumer balking behavior with fuzzy environment

Abstract

Considering the ubiquity of consumer balking behavior (CBB) in real-life economics and the importance of product quality control (QC) to supply chain (SC) competitiveness, this paper explores the SC coordination under both the QC and the CBB. Specifically, the consumer’s loss aversion behavior was illustrated at a fixed balking probability, and the SC models were created for centralized and decentralized decision-making modes. After that, the optimal strategies for the retailer and the manufacturer were identified, and the comparative static analysis was adopted to explore the effects of the CBB and QC on the optimal decision-making of the SC. The research results show that the QC-based SC under the CBB cannot be coordinated by wholesale price contract alone, but can be coordinated perfectly by this contract when the retailer shares the quality effort and the manufacturer shares the oversupply cost and analyzed through the fuzzy environment with the formulation. This finding sheds new light on the theory and application of wholesale price contract in SC coordination. Finally, the parameter sensitivity analysis was performed on balking probability and product qualification rate (PQR) through numerical experiments, which further discloses the impacts of the CBB and product QC on the optimal decision-making and profit of the SC.