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Home-Delivery-Oriented Agri-Food Supply Chain Alliance: Framework, Management Strategies, and Cooperation Stability Control

Author

Listed:
  • Chunyang Han

    (School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China)

  • Amjad Pervez

    (School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China)

  • Jingqiong Wu

    (Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China)

  • Xiaojing Shen

    (School of Logistics Management and Engineering, Nanning Normal University, Nanning 530001, China)

  • Dezhi Zhang

    (School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China)

Abstract

The high cost of operation and severe competition in the agri-food e-commerce market make it hard for the small and medium agri-food enterprises (A-SMEs) to operate cost-efficiently and in a sustainable manner. This paper seeks to organize A-SMEs to develop a cooperative organization via collaborative strategies and alliance structures, named as the home-delivery-oriented agri-food supply chain (HASC) alliance, to form a substantive relationship to gain a stable foothold in the emerging e-commerce market. A theoretical framework of the HASC alliance is built with its organizational structure and schematics of the process of implementation strategies that cover the aspects of last-mile chain extension, food transportation, and production/distribution control. Furthermore, a three-step analytical method is proposed to analyze the performance of the alliance with the aim to provide appropriate strategies to hedge against the potential risks of cooperation instability. A hypothetical case is conducted, and the results show that: (1) the performance of the hypothetical HASC alliance with time shows significant variation in the beginning, but it gains stability with the application of stability control strategies; (2) the cooperation stability of HASC alliance is very sensitive to the performance of the strategies that control the customer and environment variations; (3) the factors of trust and market fluctuation have higher effects on membership and environmental stability, respectively; (4) the minimum and maximum cost ranges of control strategies at which the alliance can maintain its stability and performance are 5% and 29%, respectively, of the total operation cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Chunyang Han & Amjad Pervez & Jingqiong Wu & Xiaojing Shen & Dezhi Zhang, 2020. "Home-Delivery-Oriented Agri-Food Supply Chain Alliance: Framework, Management Strategies, and Cooperation Stability Control," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-34, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:16:p:6547-:d:398441
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