Game Analysis of the Green Behavior in Logistics in China from the Perspective of Wicked Problems

Environmental governance fundamentally depends on effective collaboration among multiple stakeholders. Classical wicked problem theory maintains that corporate environmental engagement must be grounded in intrinsic motivation to yield genuinely collaborative outcomes; however, this demanding premise has substantially constrained the participation of firms in environmental governance. Addressing this limitation, the present study concentrates on China’s logistics industry—an energy-intensive sector with significant emissions—and constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model encompassing government authorities, logistics enterprises, and the public. The model systematically investigates the effects of three distinct reputation mechanisms—institutional incentives, market-based feedback, and social supervision—on corporate green behavioral choices. The results demonstrate that: (1) logistics enterprises exhibit stronger behavioral responsiveness to market-based reputational feedback than to institutionally incentivized reputation mechanisms; (2) under conditions of weak government regulation or limited public participation, institutional incentive–based reputation mechanisms play a critical role in promoting the adoption of green practices; (3) as government regulation and public participation simultaneously intensify, the marginal effectiveness of institutional incentive–based reputation mechanisms diminishes; and (4) social supervision–based reputation exerts a significant positive effect on corporate green behavior only when complemented by institutional incentive mechanisms. Overall, the findings indicate that reputation-based governance can facilitate behavioral transformation among reactive logistics enterprises confronting wicked environmental challenges in China. Accordingly, this study proposes policy implications emphasizing the enhancement of public participation and the strengthening of governmental governance capacity to maximize the effectiveness of reputational mechanisms.