Simulating wood companies development considering the effect of ethical marketing

• Published in: Heliyon Vol. 9; no. 1; p. e13038
• Main Authors: Chen, Zhenhuan, Zhu, Hongge, Liu, Fei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Business success; Consumer perception; Reputation management; Wood companies; Reputation management; Business success; Wood companies; Consumer perception
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13038

Dedicating oneself to a greater good is one of the secret ingredients to business success in an evolving and highly interconnected markets environment. For wood companies, this is even more needed to face the overwhelming ongoing environmental crisis affecting business practices and customers' behavior in general. To build solid reputation and increase one's presence on competing markets, wood companies should not only care about products competitiveness, but also customers' perception, environmental awareness and ethical marketing. In this article, we simulated the effect of ethical commerce on wood companies' reputation using a modified competitive and cooperative model based on differential equations considering wood type, products categories and companies brand score or reputation as function of their commitment to social and environmental causes. The qualitative analysis and results of numerical experiment show that, focusing on sharing values, and building strong relationship with customers are highly important for long-term development. Moreover, reducing environmental impact by shifting production strategy towards man-made materials could meet today customers' demands for ethically and environmentally aware manufactured wood products.