To introduce competition or not to introduce competition: An analysis of corporate social responsibility investment collaboration in a two-echelon supply chain

In this paper, we study the effects of introducing competition on supply chain systems and partner collaboration. We find that a system with internal competition obtains greater total profits, higher effective CSR investment levels, lower sales prices, and a larger market share through no collaboration or only-CSR-investment collaboration than a system without internal competition. Through introducing competition between retailers, only-CSR-investment cooperation achieves the same effective CSR investment level and total profits as CSR investment and pricing joint cooperation. We give some managerial insights into strategies for regional collaboration.