Impact of quality decisions on information sharing with supplier encroachment

This study examines a retailer's decision to share market demand information in a supply chain wherein a supplier sells a product with a certain level of quality to a retailer, who then resells it to the end consumer. It also considers whether a supplier should establish a direct selling channel by incurring a fixed entry cost to compete with the retail channel. Although conventional wisdom indicates that a retailer may voluntarily disclose information under ex-ante supplier encroachment, our results show how and why a retailer may share information with the supplier who encroaches on the retail market with a decision on quality. Specifically, our findings reveal that information sharing is beneficial to the retailer when the quality cost coefficient is low and entry cost is relatively low, even under encroachment by the supplier. Moreover, the retailer may prefer to disclose demand information to the supplier if the quality cost coefficient is low, even when the entry cost is high, under non-encroachment. Interestingly, we found that the supplier prefers to encroach if the retailer shares demand information when the entry cost is moderate. Further, we found that the retailer has a higher incentive to share information under supplier encroachment compared with non-encroachment. These results are in sharp contrast with the extant literature.

Optimal Licensing Strategy of Green Technology With Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

This paper develops a duopoly model to investigate a firm’s green technology licensing strategy with corporate social responsibility (CSR). In our model, licensing is conducted by an inside innovator and the patent holder may take CSR activities under a time-consistent emission tax. The result shows that fixed-fee licensing is always the optimal strategy of the patent holder when there is no CSR. In the CSR case, when the reduction degree of abatement cost coefficient is large, the optimal licensing strategy of the patent holder changes from pure royalty licensing to fixed-fee licensing as the degree of CSR decreases. Furthermore, we find that neither conflict nor consistency always exists between social welfare and firm payoff goals. When the degree of CSR is relatively low, fixed-fee licensing is preferred both by the patent holder and the government. Otherwise, when the degree of CSR is relatively high, the government prefers fixed-fee licensing, while the patent holder prefers royalty licensing. Finally, we analyze the effects of CSR behaviors on environment and social welfare. We show that CSR is beneficial for environment, while it is not always beneficial for social welfare.JEL Classifications: D42; M14; I13

How to operate physical showrooms: Service decision and pricing based on product quality

This paper addresses operation strategies of the physical showroom under e-commerce, and studies joint decisions of the showroom service and pricing based on product quality. First, we propose an analytical model to capture the feature of consumer purchase behaviors and model three operation strategies of the physical showroom: the cooperation operation (CO), the manufacturer operation (MO), and the e-retailer operation (RO). Then, the equilibrium solutions in the above three strategies are obtained based on product quality, and the optimal operation strategy is analyzed. Besides, we extend the model to the scenario of endogenous product quality. The results are as follows. First, in contrast to the conventional wisdom, we find that the optimal showroom service may decrease with product quality when the production cost coefficient is high. Second, the results illustrate that enterprises should consider both product quality and production cost before opening physical showrooms. When the production cost coefficient is low, both the MO strategy and the RO strategy are better than the CO strategy, which means that the enterprise should open the physical showroom separately than jointly. However, when the production cost coefficient is high, the CO strategy provides the optimal showroom service. The enterprises in the supply chain should cooperate to balance costs and benefits. Besides, when product quality is endogenous, our analysis reveals that the RO strategy may offer better product quality than the CO strategy when the production cost coefficient is moderate.

Research on Evolutionary Game of Collaborative Innovation in Supply Chain under Digitization Background

The development of digital technology has been rapidly pushing forward collaborative innovation in supply chain. This paper analyzes the influence mechanism of information sharing, resource integration, and trustworthiness among the enterprises in supply chain to collaborative innovation under the digitization background and builds the model of dynamic evolutionary game in which enterprises in supply chain participate collaborative innovation, and then, through the methods of model solution analysis and numerical simulation the following concrete conclusions are reached: the increase of data sharing profit coefficient, resource integration coefficient, and trustworthiness causes the increase of the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain, and the increase of data sharing cost, security risk coefficient, and free rider income causes the decrease of the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain; meanwhile, the increase of all the coefficients makes the velocity with which decision-making approaches to the direction toward decision higher and higher, and when the core enterprises participate the game, they can drive the common enterprises make decision more rapidly; and for the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain, data sharing profit coefficient, data sharing cost coefficient, security risk coefficient, and free rider income have threshold values. These conclusions play active roles in leading enterprises to attach importance to digitization construction and actively participate collaborative innovation in supply chain.

Analysis of sales and financing modes in a green platform supply chain with a capital-constrained manufacturer

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal operational strategies in a green platform supply chain and provide suggestions on the selection of sales and financing modes for the capital-constrained manufacturer.Design/methodology/approachThis study combines different sales channels with financing modes and investigates three sales-financing modes, i.e. traditional sales-prepayment financing (TSPF), traditional sales-bank financing (TSBF) and online sales e-retailer financing (OSEF). By establishing and comparing Stackelberg game models of these sales-financing modes from the perspectives of economy, environment and social welfare, the optimal strategies of emission reduction, financing, pricing and service improvement are obtained.FindingsThe results suggest that as the commission rate increases to a certain level, a threshold of the cost coefficient of emission reduction can be found such that the manufacturer should choose OSEF below this threshold and TSBF above this threshold. OSEF is Pareto optimal when this cost coefficient is low, and this mode can lead to the highest social welfare when the platform loan interest rate is relatively low. The Pareto areas in TSBF and OSEF enlarge as the default coefficient decreases.Practical implicationsThese results can provide operational insights on how to select sales channels and financing modes when manufacturer faces financial constraints in emission reduction.Originality/valueThis paper combines different sales and financing modes to study their comprehensive influence on the decision-makings of chain members and the resulting performance of economy, environment and social welfare.

The Green-Innovation-Inducing Effect of a Unit Progressive Carbon Tax

The major global economies are facing increasing pressure to reduce their carbon emissions. Introducing environmental policy instruments to stimulate green innovation is key to mitigating global warming. We propose a carbon tax design with a typical green innovation orientation that links carbon taxes with the low-carbon technology (LCT) of enterprises and imposes a progressive tax on heterogeneous enterprises with LCT stock to encourage green innovation. This study used a dynamic evolution game model based on the Stackelberg model of heterogeneous enterprises with LCT stock to analyze the green-innovation-inducing effect of unit progressive carbon taxes. A unit progressive carbon tax could encourage enterprises to participate in green innovation, regardless of their initial green innovation willingness. The progressive tax rate was more effective than a fixed rate for stimulating green innovation by all enterprises. There was a marginal diminishing effect of increases in the tax rate. An increase in the innovation cost coefficient of enterprises reduced the green-innovation-inducing effect of the unit progressive carbon tax. Increasing the tax rate was effective only under normal circumstances. A decline in the carbon reduction in enterprises also reduced the green-innovation-inducing effect of the unit progressive carbon tax. Furthermore, increasing the tax rate when the carbon reduction amount was extremely low caused enterprises to abandon green innovation.

Cost-sharing strategy for recycling and service investment in a closed-loop supply chain

This paper investigates the cost-sharing strategies of a manufacturer, a retailer and a third-party recycler in a Stackelberg game considering government subsidy and retailer’s service effort. Next, we construct profit functions of the manufacturer, the retailer and the third-party recycler considering government subsidy and service effort for four scenarios: no cost-sharing (N), service investment cost-sharing (I), recycling investment cost-sharing (II), and both service and recycling investment cost-sharing (III). Furthermore, we obtain the optimal results and discuss the impact of cost-sharing ratio, service cost coefficient, government subsidy and service sensitivity coefficient on profits and social net benefits. The results show that the service investment cost-sharing strategy cannot achieve profit coordination, and under certain conditions, the recycling investment cost-sharing strategy and the service and recycling investment cost-sharing strategy can achieve profit coordination. In addition, changes in different factors such as government subsidy, service cost coefficients, and service sensitivity coefficients will affect the effectiveness of cost-sharing strategies.

Weak optimal inverse problems of interval linear programming based on KKT conditions

In this paper, weak optimal inverse problems of interval linear programming (IvLP) are studied based on KKT conditions. Firstly, the problem is precisely defined. Specifically, by adjusting the minimum change of the current cost coefficient, a given weak solution can become optimal. Then, an equivalent characterization of weak optimal inverse IvLP problems is obtained. Finally, the problem is simplified without adjusting the cost coefficient of null variable.

Joint Capacity Investment, Collecting and Pricing Decisions in a Capacity Constraint Closed-Loop Supply Chain Considering Cooperation

In this paper, a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of one manufacturer and one supplier is considered. The capacity of the manufacturer is limited, the manufacturer can increase capacity by investing in capacity, and there are different cooperation contracts among the supply chain members. This paper pushes collecting activities upstream, assumes that the collecting activity can be completed by the supplier, and accepts that there is cooperation between the members, which increases supplier involvement. Dynamic game models among CLSC members are formulated. The optimal decisions of pricing, capacity investment, and collecting channels of the CLSC members are obtained, and the impacts of some important factors, for example, the capacity investment cost coefficient and the cost-sharing factors, on optimal decisions are investigated. The results reveal that the supplier collecting mode performs better in some scenarios; therefore, the management enlightenment desired by the supplier can be obtained. Additionally, the coordination between the manufacturer and the supplier sometimes fails to increase the closed-loop supply chain’s sustainability, which is a finding quite different from some current research results.

Carbon Emission Reduction and Coordination Strategies for New Energy Vehicle Closed-Loop Supply Chain under the Carbon Trading Policy

Due to the increasingly serious energy crisis and environmental pollution, new energy vehicle (NEV) as a environmentally-friendly travel tool has been vigorously developed by various countries. However, in 2020, China officially enters the “postsubsidy era” in which the carbon trading scheme will replace the current fiscal and taxation system, affecting the implementation of NEV. Under the carbon trading policy, it has gradually become a major issue how NEV companies achieve production revenue coordination and carbon emission optimization decisions. This study focuses on building a multilevel supply chain for NEV production, sales, and component recycling. In addition, this study establishes a Stackelberg game model dominated by NEV manufacturers and uses contracts to coordinate the model. Results are as follows: (1) With the increasing maturity and perfection of enterprises’ carbon emission reduction technology, consumers’ demand for new energy vehicles will increase, and the effect will be more obvious when the system centralized decision-making. (2) Since the centralized decision is aimed at the total profit of the system and has the advantage of optimal order quantity, the total benefit of the supply chain is higher than that of the decentralized decision. Moreover, if the cost coefficient of carbon emission reduction is small, the total benefit of the supply chain under the centralized decision will be more obvious. (3) From the perspective of each member of the supply chain, the profit change of the manufacturer is more sensitive to the change of order quantity compared with the cost coefficient of carbon emission reduction. When the cost of carbon emission reduction technology is too high, manufacturers may not have much incentive to carry out technological research and development and innovation, resulting in failure to achieve system optimization. (4) This study designed a revenue-cost-sharing contract coordination mechanism; that is, the retailer will provide part of the revenue to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer will provide recovery compensation to the recycler.