Decentralised or collaborative? Cooperation strategy choice of the supply chain under logistics service integrator empowerment and market size fluctuation

Nowadays, the logistics service integrator (LSI) improves service quality by empowering the functional logistics service provider (FLSP). Meanwhile, there are two cooperation strategies: decentralised strategy and collaborative strategy. On this basis, we explore: 1) the cooperation strategy choice of the supply chain members; 2) the impact of the market size fluctuation on their strategy choice. The main findings are as follows. First, when the revenue-sharing coefficient is in the middle range, both the LSI and the FLSP choose the collaborative strategy. Second, when the market size is higher than a certain threshold, no matter what strategy is implemented in the first period, supply chain members are more inclined to choose the decentralised strategy rather than the collaborative strategy in the second period. Third, we find that information asymmetry causes the supply chain members to deviate from optimal decisions, which restrains the collaborative strategy from becoming the equilibrium strategy. [Submitted: 14 May 2021; Accepted: 12 February 2022]