Behavioral strategies of actors in food safety social co-governance: Analysis of a four-party evolutionary game

Abstract Effective food safety governance relies on a social co-governance system involving multiple actors coordinating with each other. In this system, social forces composed of news media and consumers, and so on are a third-sector force that corrects government and market failures. Accordingly, this study constructs a model for the four-party evolutionary game among food companies, government agencies, news media, and consumers. The system equilibrium points are calculated and verified by Matlab numerical simulation. In addition, the impact of changes in behavioral strategies by each actor on the system evolution path is investigated. The results show that the four-party game system has three equilibrium points: {safe production, strict regulation, no coverage, participation in co-governance}, {risky production, strict regulation, coverage, participation in co-governance}, and {safe production, strict regulation, coverage, participation in co-governance}. If the input costs of government agencies exceed a critical value, the agencies will be unable to afford the high regulatory costs and have reduced motivation for strict regulation; consequently, food companies will tend to adopt risky production behaviors. The probability of food companies adopting safe production behaviors increases with the increased probability of media coverage being true. Media coverage with a low probability of being true has no deterrent effect on corporate violations. Moreover, it may even hinder regulation by government agencies by increasing the cost to verify the coverage, thus resulting in increased corporate violations. Therefore, government agencies need to improve the regulatory model and consumer rights protection mechanism to reduce the costs of strict regulation and media coverage investigation. It is also important to enhance the regulation of news media to ensure accurate coverage. In addition, government agencies need to provide consumers with optimal incentives to encourage their participation in co-governance, which also helps control the cost of government regulation.