Optimal Alliance Strategy and Its Impact in a Closed-Loop Supply Chain by considering Greenness and Service Effort

This paper handles Stackelberg game models in light of different alliance strategies in a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer, a retailer, and a third-party recycler. In this CLSC, four scenarios are examined: the decentralized case, the manufacturer and the retailer forming an alliance, the manufacturer and the third-party recycler forming an alliance, and the centralized case. And in these Stackelberg game models, a comparison between four alliance strategies is analyzed by considering greenness and service effort. The effect of alliance strategy on the decisions of the CLSC system, consumer, environment, and society is also investigated. The main objective is to find out the optimal price, greenness level, and service effort to maximize the CLSC members’ profits and give the optimal alliance strategy by using theoretical analysis. It is found that the alliance strategy improves the operation efficiency of the CLSC, and it also benefits consumers, the environment, and society. The MR alliance strategy is more effective than the MT alliance strategy, but it cannot achieve the efficiency of a centralized scenario. Finally, numerical examples are illustrated to justify the feasibility and practicability of the proposed models in reality.