Developing green purchasing relationships for the manufacturing industry: An evolutionary game theory perspective

Green purchasing plays an increasingly significant role in today’s supply chain management. Recycling, as a key factor in sustainable development, is seriously considered by many manufacturers during the process of procurement. In order to establish long‐term green purchasing relationships between multi‐stakeholders (suppliers and manufacturers), in this study the supplier selection concept model suggested by de Boer is updated, and an evolutionary game model is developed to observe the cooperation tendency of multi‐stakeholders. The newly proposed game model intensively studies the trade behavior which can be realized as strategies and payoff functions of the suppliers and manufacturers. In addition, a replicator dynamic system is formulated to study evolutionarily stable strategies of multi‐stakeholders. To verify the theoretical results, simulation experiments are conducted with meaningful results: the manufacturing industry can form the patterns of sustainable development, and the recycling capability of suppliers directly determines how green a supply chain is. The results can guide stakeholders to make better decisions in the future.