The Coupling Mechanism Of Green Supply Chain For Agricultural Products In Our Country: From The Perspective Of Institutional Economics

The development of traditional food industry (food processing of agricultural products) not only damaged the ecological environment, but also reduced and even injuring the safety of product quality. It also caused imbalance of the industrial chain interests. The human beings, fully understood the of ecological evolution and mutually beneficial symbiosis, scientifically and rationally chose a new model of sustainable development of food industry——the Green Food Industry Model. This model is in favor of improving and protecting the environment and ensuring the quality and safety of foods. And still it is beneficial to each interest group in the industrial chain. Vigorously developing the Green Food Industry is an effective way to solve the issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers and to enhance the overall efficiency and competitiveness of Chinese agriculture. We can learn from the concepts and tools of the Green Supply Chain Management (the GSCM) to develop the Green Food Industry.The problems, such as the quality and safety of processed agricultural products and low efficiency in the food processing industry and so on, have troubled our country for a long time. To a large extent, they are organizational issues, which can be considered as problems in the coupling of the main body of the edible agricultural product supply chain. They are expressed as the relaxed link of the supply chain, the imbalance distribution of interests among production, supply and marketing, the fierce contradiction between the primary production and the processing and marketing sectors, etc. It is necessary to research the coupling problems of the supply chain of green agricultural products. In order to optimize all processes and functions of the supply chain, we are trying to provide green foods (it refers to a broad green foods, including safe foods, green foods, organic foods) under customer-driven, also to save transaction costs, to improve efficiency of resource usage, to maximize the value of the whole supply chain for agricultural products. At the same time, we hope it could develop with balance distribution of profits in each stage, better control the foods quality and safety, be compatible with the environment. It is designed to promote the dissemination of knowledge and technologies and proliferation of capital among the members of the supply chain so as to prevent the replication and imitation of competitors. Thereby, to enhance the competitiveness of edible agricultural products supply chain as a whole. This supply chain research, by introducing the institutional economics and using the transaction cost theory, the principal-agent theory, the game theory, etc., studies the relationships between the co-operators in the supply chain and attempts to find the effective institutional arrangements under which the supply chain of green agricultural products could run smoothly. It also hopes to enrich and develop the theory of supply chain management system, and to provide valuable references for the production and operation management model of Chinese agricultural enterprises. In this research, it mainly adopted the following methods:theoretical and practical research, qualitative and quantitative analysis, normative and empirical analysis, institutional economics analysis, game analysis and so on.The whole paper is divided into nine chapters. The first is an introductory, mainly explained the global issues such as energy crisis, environmental pollution, resource degradation and agricultural production inefficiencies, etc., and introduced the new situation of the world agricultural market since the mid-1990s. It holds that China is needed to study extensively and in-depth the green supply chain problems in agricultural products. On the basis of significance and purpose of this research, the first part summarizes the research trends home and abroad about supply chain, green supply chain, supply chain for agricultural products and related issues.The second chapter is theoretical interpretations. Firstly, the paper mainly illustrates the institutional economics theory of coupling of green supply chain for agricultural products. The institutional economics theory of main body coupling of green supply chain includes:the theory of division and collaboration, the theory of corporate nature and border, the theory of transaction cost, the theory of contract and performance, the relational contracting and governance model, the theory of principal-agent. Then, it engages in institutional economic analyses of the main body coupling of the supply chain. It illuminates the institutional evolution logic of the organizational structure and points out that the organization of supply chain is a kind of induced institutional change of enterprises under economic globalization. It proposes that the Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the institutional norm under the system of supply chain organizations.In the third chapter, it analyzes the coupled dynamic mechanisms of green supply chain for agricultural products. At first, it clarifies the interests of the coupled agricultural supply chain in terms of game theory and cost-benefit. Then, it analyzes the source of interests of coupled supply chain, the competition between the supply chains, the creation of relationship capital and rent, the green supply chain together with the overflow of green knowledge. Thirdly, it establishes the cooperative game model between upstream and downstream enterprises in the green supply chain for agricultural products based on the overflow of green knowledge. It finally compares the economic performance between green-cooperated and non-green-cooperated enterprises so as to stimulate green-cooperative motivations among enterprises in the supply chain.The forth chapters analyzes the harmonious and stable mechanism of coupled green supply chain for agricultural products. It started with propose of requirements in designation of harmonious and stable mechanism of coupled green supply chain for agricultural products according to the problems existing in cooperative supply chain model. It puts forward that the information-sharing mechanism is the efficiency base of green supply chain and the base of coupled supply chain. It also says that the distribution of interests among the cooperated main bodies in supply chain is the core element to stabilize the supply chain. The harmonious and stable mechanism needs a scientific and rational mechanism for benefits distribution. And this part ends with qualitative and quantitative analysis on the information-sharing mechanism, the cooperative mechanism for benefits distribution and the performance binding mechanisms respectively.In Chapter five, it studies the coupling styles of the upstream in the green supply chain for agricultural products, and proposes some specific guidance for the main upstream bodies——farmers, and processing enterprises. Taking the processing enterprises and farmers as a natural community of interests and viewing from supply of green agricultural products, it points out the necessity of coupling between the processing enterprises of raw materials producers. Then, it explains the forms and problems about coupling of processing companies and raw material producers. Using models, it makes a quantitative analysis of the boundary about the green supply chain for agricultural products with the attendance of processing enterprises and raw materials producers. And then based on the game analysis of coupling of raw materials producers and processing enterprises, it points out that the profit under centralized decision-making prerequisited with the symmetric information is greater than that under decentralized decision-making, and further analyzes the cooperative and competitive game and its balance between raw materials producers and processing enterprises with perfect information. It ends up with a cooperation case between raw material producers and processing enterprises.Based on results of the related academic researches, aiming at the cooperation between downstream enterprises in green supply chain for agricultural products and adopting quantitative and qualitative analysis, chapter six explores problems as pricing, distribution of profits, etc. involving manufacturers and retailers in the supply chain. It begins with an example of indirect channel model of processors→retailers→consumer of green food. By constructing models, it illustrates the necessity of cooperation between processors and retailers in the downstream of the green food supply chain, and the necessary conditions for their stable cooperation. Then, it examines the channel strategies of the green food manufacturers when there are no consumer preferences about channels. It arrives at conclusion that it is the rational choice for the green food manufacturers to have mixed channels. It also analyzes in depth that how to make the channel-share decision for green food manufacturers in the mixed-channel mode when there are consumer preferences about channels. In the end of this part, it explores the behaviors of producers conditioned with Nash-Game in the following aspects:how to coordinate the relations between the direct and indirect channels and among the internal parts of channels; how to incentive the cooperation of retailers to maximize the total profit of mixed-channel and achieve win-win situation that the profits on both parts respectively after cooperation are larger than those before cooperation.On the strength of the important role of consumers in the green supply chain for agricultural products, Chapter seven conducts an empirical analysis on consumer behaviors when consuming green foods, so as to provide guidance to producers and marketers of green agricultural products in determining business strategies.Chapter eight points out that it's necessary for the government to intervene in the operation of the green supply chain for agricultural products for its positive externalities. It proposes the necessities for government's intervention in regulating the green foods, subsidizing the producers of green agricultural products and supervising the market of green agricultural products. At the same time, adopting the game theory, it analyzes the acts of the government and the enterprise to the green supply chain for agricultural product aiming to provide with decision-making basis for governments and enterprises to motivate SCM.Chapter nine is a case study. It in-depth reaserches the the formation of the camellia oil's price and the distribution of benefits by taking the green food, the camellia oil, as the main line, through the survey of the camellia growers who providing the chief raw materials for××company, the processor××company and the retailor××supermarket, together with visiting relevant industrial competent authorities. It obtains some inspiration from the economic analysis respectively at different levels like the farmers, the processors, the supermarkets, the government and so on. It looks forward to provide some referential recommendations for the government's policy-control, so as to promote smooth operations of the green supply chain of agricultural products in China.The last chapter of this paper points out major achievements, deficiency of the study and suggests the direction for further study.