Sustainable Supply Chains for Poverty Alleviation: Considering Branding and Nash Bargaining Fairness Concerns

With economic development and shifting consumption trends, branding has become an important way to improve the efficiency of poverty alleviation supply chains (PASCs) in practice. However, academic research on this topic is limited. To fill this gap in the literature, we constructed a differential game of a PASC that examines how to build a sustainable poverty reduction model through branding, considering government subsidies and supplier’s Nash bargaining fairness concerns. Our findings show the following: (1) Government subsidies can improve the decision-making level and channel efficiency of leading enterprises (E) and poor suppliers (F). Government subsidies are necessary for a PASC to establish a sustainable poverty alleviation mechanism. (2) F’s Nash bargaining fairness concerns only reduce their level of production effort but do not affect the brand construction and corporate social responsibility levels of E. (3) As F’s bargaining power increases, Nash bargaining fairness concerns have a more significant effect on the PASC’s performance. While F’s fairness concerns can enhance their utility to some extent, it ultimately leads to more significant profit losses for both parties. (4) The proposed mixed cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contract can effectively align members’ incentives, enhancing profitability for both parties.