How to improve the quality of emergency supplies? A tripartite evolutionary game model

Purpose Providing quality emergency supplies is crucial to mitigate and respond to emergencies. However, despite government and consumer oversight of emergency supplies’ quality, a troubling trend persists among some enterprises to sacrifice product quality for financial gain. This paper examines the influence of strategy selections among governments, enterprises, and consumers to enhance the quality of emergency supplies. Design/methodology/approach We develop a tripartite evolutionary game model consisting of three stakeholders: government, enterprises, and consumers, considering factors including subsidies and penalties. After analysing three stakeholders’ strategic choices to ascertain system stability, parametric analyses were conducted. Findings Excessive or insufficient subsidies are not conducive to encouraging enterprises to adopt an authentic production strategy; excessive subsidies may result in consumers enduring counterfeiting. Furthermore, the government’s supervision strategy can stabilise the system quickly, suggesting that consumer reporting cannot replace government supervision. Additionally, incentivising enterprises to adopt an authentic production strategy can be achieved by increasing penalties and enhancing compensation while reducing consumer reporting, government supervision, and raw materials costs. Originality/value We present a preliminary exploration of how to promote the production of qualified emergency supplies in the early stages of an emergency event. The model and findings proposed in this paper can be generalised and applied to various emergency events, including epidemics and earthquakes.