Dynamic strategies of quality, marketing, and promotion under public opinion crisis and rise of individualism

Public opinion crisis and (POC) and rise of individualism (RI) occur frequently in a live-streaming supply chain (LSSC). We establish a LSSC within a firm, which consists of a production and operations department (POD) and a live-streaming department (LSD) centred around a CEO. The firm may be perfect-farsighted or limited-farsighted, and we investigate the impact of POC and RI caused by the CEO acting as a streamer. We use the Markov processes to model the occurrences of POC and RI and consider three scenarios: POC occurs first (COF), RI occurs first (IOF), and the occurrence sequence of POC and PI is uncertain (CIU). We examine the impact of POC and RI on a firm’s quality investment, marketing and promotion efforts, and long-term profitability. The study finds that POC (RI) is not always detrimental (beneficial) to a firm. Especially the COF scenario, a low-impact POC not only motivates POD and LSD to enhance their efforts but also leads to an increase in firm’s profitability. POD invests more in product marketing than in product quality, which makes LSD’s profit higher than its. Whether the firm is perfect-farsighted or limited-farsighted, it prefers RI occurring before POC.