Platform Operations With Corporate Social Responsibility: Sales Assistance and Channel Selection
研究了以企业社会责任为导向的平台如何通过销售协助影响供应商的渠道选择和利润，发现协助效率和佣金率是关键，高社会责任平台若佣金过高反而会损害供应商。
As corporate social responsibility (CSR) gains increasing prominence in e-commerce, platforms are increasingly providing sales assistance to support their suppliers, such as JD's consumer-to-manufacturer initiatives, which help suppliers reduce their direct selling cost. However, the interplay between such sales assistance and the platform's CSR commitments remains poorly understood. While assistance can lower suppliers' operational cost, it may also reduce their profits in reselling channels, complicating the overall welfare implications. To systematically examine this interplay, we develop a game-theoretic model in which a CSR-oriented platform decides whether and how to assist a supplier, who subsequently chooses a distribution channel. Our results show that sales assistance benefits both parties only when the assistance is highly efficient and the commission rate is moderate. Otherwise, even well-intentioned assistance can harm the supplier due to high commission fees. Moreover, even if a platform with a high CSR level (i.e., one that pays more attention to suppliers' profits in addition to its own) exerts more assistance effort, a high commission rate can squeeze more profit, making sales assistance harmful to the supplier. Therefore, our study not only enriches the existing literature on channel structures by combining CSR and sales assistance but also provides valuable managerial insights. Specifically, it highlights that simply providing sales assistance is insufficient as it is necessary to simultaneously reduce commission fees for platform managers to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Managerial relevance statement:</i> This research provides crucial strategic guidance for engineering managers and policy makers navigating platform-driven supply chains. For engineering managers responsible for designing operational assistance systems, such as logistics optimization tools, supplier training modules, or data analytics platforms, our findings demonstrate that technical efficiency alone is insufficient. To create sustainable impact, these systems must be coupled with moderate commission structures and a nuanced understanding of channel selection dynamics. Specifically, managers should evaluate how assistance efficiency interacts with commission rates across different channel structures to avoid unintended consequences where platform support inadvertently diminishes supplier profitability. For policymakers and platform strategists, this study reveals that corporate social responsibility initiatives require careful calibration between operational support and financial pressures. Regulatory frameworks and platform governance models should encourage transparent pricing structures and balanced risk-sharing mechanisms. Wellintentioned assistance programs can inadvertently harm supplier viability when implementation overlooks these economic realities. Policy interventions could include establishing guidelines for fair commission practices or creating certification standards for effective supplier development programs. This paper also contributes to the following SDGs: SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 12.