With the progress of green transformation, government subsidies have become an important incentive for enterprises to invest in green technologies. However, their effectiveness differs markedly under alternative decision-making structures. This study develops a two-tier green supply chain game model comprising manufacturers and e-commerce platform self-operators. Six game structures are examined, covering both scenarios without subsidies and those in which manufacturers receive subsidies. The analysis focuses on product greenness, service levels, retail prices, and the profits of supply chain members. The results show that government subsidies substantially enhance manufacturers’ green investments and motivate platform self-operators to provide higher levels of green services, thereby improving market performance and overall supply chain profitability. Among the different structures, centralized decision-making demonstrates the strongest coordination effect and maximizes the subsidy impact. In contrast, within decentralized structures, subsidies help alleviate double marginalization, but their effectiveness is constrained by the distribution of power. These findings highlight the heterogeneous impacts of subsidies on green supply chain performance, offering theoretical support for targeted government policy design and practical guidance for enterprises to optimize green collaborative strategies.
Ren et al. (Wed,) studied this question.