•Explore on-demand platform operations with hired agents.•Consider service pricing with consumers having different risk attitudes.•Uncover the role played by the blockchain technology.•Compare the ...common pricing policy and the customized pricing policy.•Determine the value of blockchain technology mediated customized service pricing strategy.
On-demand service platforms are popular nowadays. Many platforms hire agents to serve customers who are risk sensitive towards the waiting-time. In this paper, we apply the mean-risk theory to analytically explore how the risk attitude of customers affects the optimal service pricing decision of the on-demand platform, consumer surplus (CS) of customers, the expected profit (EP) and profit risk (PR) of the platform (and the hired service agents). In the basic model, assuming consumers are homogeneous, we find that if the customers are more risk averse (risk seeking), the optimal service price will drop (increase). Comparing among the three different risk attitudes of customers, we find that when the customers are risk seeking, the CS and the platform's EP are highest, even though the platform's PR is also highest. While the opposite happens when the customers are risk averse. In the extended model with a market including customers with different risk attitudes, the blockchain technology helps the platform assess the proportion of risk seeking, risk neutral and risk averse customers accurately. We explore the optimal service prices under both the common pricing policy and the customized pricing policy (with-respect-to customer's risk attitude), and derive the value of blockchain technology mediated customized service pricing strategy. We conclude by highlighting that the risk attitudes of customers play a critical role in determining the optimal on-demand service pricing, and the blockchain technology is a valuable technological tool to help.
•Impacts of leadership on CSR management in a multi-tier supply chain are studied.•Tier 1 leads Tier 2 and Tier 2 leads Tier 1 are discussed separately.•The delegation and control strategies of Tier ...0 buyer are compared.•Surprisingly, the control strategy may be more efficient when Tier 1 leads Tier 2.•Impacts of information asymmetry and funding factor are addressed.
As supply chains become more complex and multi-tiered, managing corporate social responsibility (CSR) of lower-tier suppliers is more challenging and draws increasing attention. In this paper, we develop a game theory model with a multi-tier supply chain, which consists of a Tier 0 buyer, a direct Tier 1 supplier and an indirect Tier 2 supplier. To reduce the CSR violations of Tier 2 supplier, the Tier 0 buyer can either provide funding to the Tier 1 supplier (delegation strategy) or fund the Tier 2 supplier directly (control strategy). We theoretically analyze the optimal strategy under two different supply chain leaderships: Tier 1 leads Tier 2, and Tier 2 leads Tier 1, and further discuss the impact of supply chain leadership. Unlike empirical studies arguing that delegation is more effective when the Tier 1 leads Tier 2, we find that when the funding factor is uniform among suppliers (exogenous), the control strategy is more likely to ensure a lower violation probability than the delegation strategy. Besides, when the loss of Tier 0 buyer due to violations in Tier 2 is relatively small, the buyer may adopt the strategy with a higher violation probability to maximize his profit. In addition, we also consider information asymmetry between the Tier 0 buyer and Tier 2 supplier, and find that the buyer is more inclined to choose the delegation strategy if he is more uncertain about the Tier 2 supplier. Finally, we explore four model extensions and show that the main results are robust.
PurposeThis study aims to explore the impact of supply chain quality event (SCQE) announcements on enterprises’ stock market value.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts the event study ...approach and analyzes the changes in shareholder value of companies listed in China based on data from 118 SCQE announcements. In the event study, the market, market-adjusted and Carhart four-factor models are used to estimate abnormal stock market returns, and a cross-sectional regression model is performed to examine the effects of SCQE announcements on enterprises’ stock market value.FindingsSCQE announcements have a negative impact on shareholder value. From the perspective of the supply chain network structure, the market reacts more negatively to SCQE announcements issued by the enterprises with higher supply chain concentration. From the perspective of companies’ characteristics, announcements that do not reflect the establishment of supply chain quality cooperation have a more negative effect on stock market value, which indicates that the supply chain network structure and firm-level characteristic can moderate the market reaction.Practical implicationsThe findings demonstrate a quantitative evaluation of how SCQE announcements affect the stock market value of listed companies and provide guidance for managers to enhance the value of SCQE announcements.Originality/valueThis study fills the research gap on the impact of SCQE announcements on stock market value by using secondary data and first explores the relationship between SCQE announcements and stock market value from the perspective of supply chain network. Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature on SCQE using an empirical study in China.
•Explore luxury fashion supply chains with different brand-tier products.•Examine the channel coordination challenges.•Highlight the role played by different risk attitudes.•Extend the analysis to ...consider the market share issues.
Advertisement is critical in luxury fashion supply chains. In this paper, we analytically explore the optimal advertisement budget allocation strategy and coordination challenge when there are multiple brand-tier products in the market. In the basic model, we focus our analyses with respect to different risk attitudes that the luxury fashion brand takes and the coordination mechanisms. We show that irrespective of risk attitudes of the luxury fashion brand, the optimal advertisement strategy is a polarized strategy. We derive the coordination mechanisms to overcome the double marginalization effect for each risk attitude case. In the extended model, with the market share considerations, the optimal advertisement strategy is derived and is shown to be no longer polarized in general.
For many food products, such as fresh vegetable and fruit, proper handling of product leftovers is critical. In recent years, food leftover sharing (FLS) platforms that can provide a means to collect ...the unsold food products from individual retailers and create values from them have emerged. Motivated by this real world observation, we build a single supplier multi-retailer analytical supply chain model to explore the value of this kind of FLS platform. In the decentralized supply chain setting, we prove that the presence of FLS platform is beneficial to the retailers, the supplier, the consumers and the environment. Whether it benefits the supply chain economically depends on the logistics costs (incurred from the food product leftover collection by the FLS platform). We extend the analysis to the case with a centralized supply chain and show that the FLS platform is guaranteed to help improve the environment, but the consumers and the supply chain are only benefited when the logistics costs are sufficiently small. Sensitivity analyses are conducted which show that for both centralized and decentralized supply chain settings, the FLS platform is especially helpful in enhancing social welfare when the unit food product leftover cost is higher, the unit benefit derived from reusing the food product leftovers is higher, or the unit logistics cost is lower. We further consider the case when the logistics cost with the use of platform is high, propose the use of government sponsors to help and provide the conditions under which this sponsor is well-justified with respect to social welfare enhancement.
•Analytically explore values of food leftover sharing (FLS) platforms in the sharing economy.•Highlight how FLS platforms enhance the performance of supply chain and its agents.•Uncover the impacts of FLS platforms on consumers, environment and social welfare.•Propose a justifiable government sponsorship scheme to support FLS platforms.
As observed in real-world practices, retailers commonly provide the demand-enhancing service to increase product value, but this service can also be outsourced to the upstream manufacturer. The party ...offering the service faces a tradeoff between the incurred cost of service and the additional revenue generated. Through a service provision strategy matrix based on the question of who is better off by undertaking the service provision, we develop a model of two heterogeneous competitive retailers selling an identical product produced by one manufacturer, and obtain several managerial insights. For instance, we find that the service provision always generates two potential effects: a positive "demand expansion effect" and a negative "service cost effect." The favored retailer always benefits from the demand expansion effect. However, the disfavored retailer does not always benefit from service provision even if the negative service cost effect is transferred through service outsourcing. If the interretailer competition is not very fierce and the two retailers have similar initial market sizes, service outsourcing yields a win-win situation. Interestingly, we identify that two retailers adopting the retailer-provided service is a classic Prisoner's dilemma. Furthermore, we also examine the manufacturer's response and find that the manufacturer obtains a profit when the retailers outsource services. Counter-intuitively, the manufacturer has an incentive to reject service outsourcing since the retailer-provided service can bring more profits. Surprisingly, this initiative rejection strategy always forces the retailers into different Prisoner's dilemmas and decrease the channel efficiency. Furthermore, we discuss some extensions to prove the robustness of our main qualitative insights.
In the circular economy era, environmental sustainability is critical, and both green and non-green products with similar functions co-exist in practice. There is little doubt that these two types of ...products are competing and may substitute one another even though one is more environmental friendly than the other. In this paper, we build analytical models to explore the optimal advertising and pricing decisions for a green product in the presence of a non-green product substitute. We investigate both simultaneous and sequential pricing strategies under which there are three possible pricing scenarios, namely: 1) both prices of green and non-green products are determined simultaneously (Strategy IP), 2) the green product's price is decided first and then the non-green product's price is determined (Strategy GL), and 3) the non-green product's price is decided first and then the green product's price is determined (Strategy NL). We find that the sequential pricing strategy is more profitable than the simultaneous pricing strategy for both green and non-green supply chains. It is interesting to prove the existence of “second-mover advantage” in the pricing game. Moreover, we identify that if the green supply chain uses Strategy NL, it could achieve a better performance in profit and minimize the corresponding environmental impact. If the green supply chain is truly socially responsible, it should design a product with low substitutability, so that the environmental impact can be enhanced. Furthermore, our numerical results indicate that Strategy IP never performs the best in terms of consumer surplus and social welfare when the product substitution level is sufficiently high. Findings of this paper contribute to the literature on cleaner production systems in the circular economy era.
PurposeThis study aims to explore the impact of blockchain announcements on enterprises' stock market value.Design/methodology/approachBased on resource-based theory, this study constructs a complete ...framework of the impact mechanism of blockchain announcements on the stock price of the announcing firm using the data of 143 blockchain announcements. An event study methodology is used in this research, and the market model, market-adjusted model and Carhart four-factor model are used to estimate stock abnormal returns after the blockchain announcement; and the cross-sectional regression model is used to test the influencing factors.FindingsBlockchain announcements elicit a significantly positive market reaction on the release day. Compared to announcements not pertaining to technical innovation, blockchain technical innovation announcements exhibit a more positive market reaction towards the announcing companies. Strategic-level announcements exhibit a more positive market reaction than operational-level announcements. Enterprise characteristics, such as enterprise-scale and enterprise innovation ability, do not affect stock market reactions to blockchain announcements.Practical implicationsThe findings reveal the economic value of conducting blockchain activities in the Chinese stock market. Findings of this study can help managers understand the value of implementing blockchain activities in a different market environment and guide them on how to improve the market value of their enterprises through the active implementation of blockchain activities.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first event study to focus solely on the value of pure blockchain announcements in an emerging market. This study considers multiple resource and capability factors that would influence blockchain technology adoption, improve the current understanding of how blockchain announcements affect corporate stock prices and provide directions for future comparative studies of market reactions to blockchain announcements in different stock markets.
As a novel evolutionary searching technique, ant colony optimization (ACO) has gained wide research attention and can be used as a tool for optimizing an array of mathematical functions. In ...transportation systems, when ACO is applied to solve the vehicle routing problem (VRP), the path of each ant is only "part" of a feasible solution. In other words, multiple ants' paths may constitute one feasible solution. Previous works mainly focus on the algorithm itself, such as revising the pheromone updating scheme and combining ACO with other optimization methods. However, this body of literature ignores the important procedure of constructing feasible solutions with those "parts". To overcome this problem, this paper presents a novel ACO algorithm (called AMR) to solve the VRP. The proposed algorithm allows ants to go in and out the depots more than once until they have visited all customers, which simplifies the procedure of constructing feasible solutions. To further enhance AMR, we propose two extensions (AMR-SA and AMR-SA-II) by integrating AMR with other saving algorithms. The computational results for standard benchmark problems are reported and compared with those from other ACO methods. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithms outperform the existing ACO algorithms.
Product development is a critical part of all business operations. In fashion apparel, product development is a complicated process. In recent years, with the advance of technologies and the growing ...public awareness of environmental protection, product development processes (PDPs) in supply chains, including fashion supply chains, need to be environmentally sustainable. In this paper, we first identify the commonly seen supply chain structures in the fashion industry. Then, by examining the product development process in practice and in the literature, we identify the essential steps in fashion PDPs, which include planning, product design, manufacturing, and product launching. We further classify the product development process into three types, namely the traditional product development process (TPDP), new product development process (NPDP), and sustainable product development process (SPDP). Furthermore, we analyze the key factors of achieving sustainable fashion based on the triple bottom line (TBL) framework regarding the PDP. We establish a sustainable product development process (SPDP) matrix, which can guide the fashion supply chain members to operate in a sustainable manner during the SPDP. Finally, we reveal open research issues and propose a future research agenda.
