Service employees’ emotional and behavioral responses to angry customer complaints were examined to help firms improve their service recovery performance. Role-played complaints were conducted in a ...field experiment set in fast-food restaurants. Actors played customers who complained in an angry fashion to service employees. Employees’ immediate emotional (i.e., expressed anger) and delayed behavioral responses (i.e., restitution offered) were observed. A follow-up scenario-based experimental study was used to retest the hypotheses and add controls to rule out potential rival explanations. In both studies, level of customer status (low vs. high; true experimental design) and strength of a restaurant’s service climate (weak vs. strong; quasi-experimental design) were manipulated. The findings confirm that employees in a weak service climate expressed more anger and were less likely to offer restitution to low- compared to high-status customers. In contrast, in a strong service climate, employee responses were less dependent on customer status and converged at a low level of anger and high probability of restitution offered. Furthermore, the consistent immediate affective and delayed behavioral responses suggest that a strong service climate is internalized by frontline employees. This study contributes to service theory by establishing a customer status main effect on both affective and conative employee responses and by confirming service climate as a boundary condition for the customer status main effect. A key implication for managers is that establishing a strong service climate is important for achieving effective service recovery in increasingly diverse societies.
•Delphi study discovered that implementing collaborative forecasting creates several opportunities and challenges in sustainable supply chain on both corporate and supply chain levels that play a key ...role to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).•The major opportunities are overcoming corruption such as bribery and kickbacks, meritocracy, fair competition as well as customer rights and service promotion.•The main challenges identified are partner selection, identifying standard criteria of sustainable supply chain, measuring sustainable supply chain criteria, transformational evolution and partner selection.•The issue of connecting a micro-level (company to company negotiations) with a macro-level of decision making systems (UN global compact) must be taken into account.•Implementing of collaborative forecast reduces the class distinctions among different members of supply chain that is in favor of the whole supply chain interest but conflicts with the interest of some particular companies. This is could be considered as the UN global compact economic repercussions.
This research inquired into the constituents making up the dimensions of the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, explored the challenges and opportunities associated with collaborative forecasting. This direction was motivated by the fact that social sustainability, has received minimal attention in the literature. This study determined the constructs that are critical to creating sustainable supply chains. A three-phase Delphi approach involving qualitative and quantitative analyses was carried out. Feedback was obtained from 18 international experts who are very knowledgeable about collaboration and sustainable supply chains. Initially, 24 independent constructs that can be regarded as sub-dimensions of the dimensions making up the UN Global Compact were identified. However, sub-questions directed at all opportunities and challenges that are encountered at both corporate and supply chain levels yielded 38 constructs. Finally, eight key constructs were identified as highly critical to supply chain sustainability. No study has directly extracted the sub-dimensions of the UN Global Compact dimensions, and most research focused on economic and environmental sustainability while neglecting social sustainability. The current work is an attempt to address these gaps. Additionally, the research directed attention to the neglected relationship between collaborative forecasting and supply chain sustainability.
Healthcare supply chain has recently attracted attention by scholars, researchers, government officials and providers as one of the main tools in their effort to manage healthcare cost and improve ...quality at the same time (Elmuti, et al., 2013). It is reported that healthcare costs in the United States represent a sizeable portion of the gross domestic product and it is expected to increase at a much higher rate than other sectors in the economy. Nevertheless maturity of healthcare supply chain is said behind the commercial supply chain leaving room for improvement (de Vries and Huijsman, 2011). This paper explores strategic areas where healthcare supply chain may enhance efficiency in terms of cost per patient discharge of healthcare operations while improving the quality of care in terms of reducing re-admission rate. This paper argues that fundamentals of supply chain principles should be deployed to create “supply chain community surplus” where resources can be tapped to improve quality of care. Three strategic areas were explored to maximize the provider's revenue; understanding of supply chain principles (perception change), process improvement and deployment of logistics tools.
•Successful SC deployment requires a sound understanding of SC principles.•Deployment of SCM creates economic surplus for the SC participants.•Economic surplus helps providers to undertake quality improvement.•Healthcare organizations should adopt innovative commercial SC tools.•Healthcare SC community needs a new generation of SC to overcome talent shortage.
Social media have surged prominently as communication channels for corporate social responsibility. However, little is still known about the performance of green versus non‐green communication across ...different social media. We contribute by examining whether the presence of green features in social media communication exerts a beneficial effect on consumer response in terms of likes, comments, and shares. We also investigate how this effect hinges upon the social media platform where the content is posted as well as the richness of the format (text, photos, videos) utilized for the diffusion. To our scopes, we use an ad hoc dataset of posts of two major large‐scale retailers in Italy across three major social media, namely Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Our results show that, while green content generally stimulates larger response than non‐green content, its effect varies across social media, with the highest effect being observed on Instagram (at least for likes) and the lowest on Twitter (at least for comments). Moreover, the extent to which the positive effect of green content increases as media richness increases (i.e., moving from only text to text plus photo, and then to text plus video) is also contingent upon the social media platform. On Facebook, the moderation of media richness is positive and significant, while being insignificant on Instagram. On Twitter, the moderation is even nonmonotonic in the sense that the highest (positive) effect of green content tends to be obtained for either low or high media richness. Our findings offer remarkable implications for firms engaging in environmental sustainability.
This paper develops a conceptual framework for factors involved in collaborative forecasting in food supply chains. Although the existing literature has analyzed many theoretical perspectives in ...relation to collaborative forecasting in the food supply chain, there is a scarcity of research examining how manufacturers and retailers conduct long-term and accurate collaborative forecasting for seasonal, perishable, promotional, and newly launched products. In the proposed framework, we focus on the collaborative forecasts of manufacturers and retailers. Through a systematic review of the literature, we have identified trends, gaps and areas for future research involving partners׳ integration, information sharing and forecasting process in the supply chain. The review reveals that partners׳ integration is a key requirement for collaborative forecasting while type and quality of information shared are critical for forecasts. Moreover, forecasting strategies of manufacturers and retailers play a pivotal role for consensus forecasts while the role of forecast horizon and frequency should not be neglected. Finally, the impact of forecasters is critical in addition to group forecasting techniques applied to generate consensus forecasts in collaborative forecasting. Ten propositions are developed for empirical testing. The proposed framework may serve as a guide for practitioners when initiating and conducting long-term collaborative forecasting partnerships. The research is limited to examining the manufacturer–retailer dyadic collaboration, and focuses on specific food product categories.
•Systematic review of literature of manufacturer–retailer collaboration is conducted.•It focuses on perishable, seasonal, promotional and newly launched products in the food industry.•Ten hypotheses are proposed for empirical testing.•A conceptual framework for collaborative forecasting in the food supply chain is proposed.•Managerial insights are provided for collaborative forecasting in food sector and similar industries.
Supply chain systems for fashion apparel products face a high level of risk as the market demand is very volatile and unpredictable. In order to cope with demand volatility, the quick response system ...which aims to shorten replenishment lead time has been well-established. With a shortened lead time, retailers can postpone the ordering decision and improve their demand forecast by gathering updated market information. However, there is a limit for quick response in which the market demand forecast is never fully accurate and uncertainty can never be fully eliminated. Thus, to keep the level of risk under control, retailers tend to possess a risk-averse behaviour in making their respective inventory decisions. In this paper, we explore the make-to-order quick response fashion supply chain with a risk averse retailer. We employ the mean-risk framework to incorporate the retailer’s risk averse behavior into the optimization model. With the focal point on uncovering the impacts brought by the retailer’s risk averse behavior to the quick response fashion supply chain system, we analytically derive important theoretical insights regarding the retailer’s optimal decisions, the implied inventory service levels, the values of quick response, and the contractual arrangements to attain Pareto improvement when the retailer is risk averse.
Collaboration in the supply chain has been widely discussed, and a wealth of concepts is at hand. Large-scale projects like the Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) in the fast moving consumer goods ...sector, for example, or Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) initiatives more generally provide a rich continuum of strategies for collaborating amongst supply chain partners. While individual successful implementations of the latter have already been reported, there has not yet been the widespread adoption that was originally hoped for. In our research, we looked at implementations across several industries and countries, and our findings show that the slow progress to date may be due to a lack of common understanding of these concepts, and the difficulty of integrating external collaboration with internal production and inventory control. In this paper, we set out to classify collaboration initiatives using a conceptual water-tank analogy, and discuss their dynamic behavior and key characteristics. We draw upon case studies from both successful and less successful implementations to illustrate what companies need to do to fully benefit from their collaborative efforts, given their particular circumstances. We conclude that the effectiveness of supply chain collaboration relies upon two factors: the level to which it integrates internal and external operations, and the level to which the efforts are aligned to the supply chain settings in terms of the geographical dispersion, the demand pattern, and the product characteristics.
Commercial hoof supplements commonly contain biotin, minerals such as copper and zinc, and essential fatty acids, such as α-linolenic acid (ALA). Biotin, when supplemented at 5-20 mg daily, increases ...hoof hardness and hoof growth; however, these effects have not been tested in horses with normal hoof quality, a population that commonly receives them. The objective of this research was to test the efficacy of a commercially-available dietary supplement (LinPro, Foxden Equine, Stuarts Draft, VA) to enhance hoof growth rates in healthy, unshod horses for 6 months (5 treatment LP; 5 control CN). Secondary objectives were to determine vitamin, mineral, and fatty acid compositions of feed, hoof samples, and plasma following supplementation. The supplement provided 302 mg ALA, 25 mg biotin, 203 mg copper, and 585 mg zinc. Hooves were trimmed at the start of the study and every 8 weeks thereafter. A horizontal line was inscribed on the left front foot and used to measure growth. At the end of the study, hoof clippings and plasma were sampled. Feed was sampled every 8 weeks, composited, and used to determine total intake of biotin, copper, zinc, and ALA. Mares on LP consumed greater levels of biotin, zinc, and copper (P<0.001) but not ALA (P>0.7), and had greater (P=0.032) average hoof growth than CN mares (1.7 ± 0.07 vs 1.4 ± 0.05 cm per 8 week period). Hoof clippings from LP and CN mares contained similar (P>0.5) quantities of ALA, zinc, and copper. Plasma biotin concentration was greater (P<0.001) in LP than CN mares, while other metabolites were not different (P>0.05). Although primarily designed for horses with poor hoof quality, consuming the tested supplement for 6 months increased hoof growth rates in horses with normal hoof quality, which may in part be due to increased biotin intake.
Motivated by the unique pricing and the contractual structure between a manufacturer and its retailers, and the uncharacteristic manner in the commercialization of newly developed products in the ...cosmetic industry, this paper studies a quantity-flexibility (QF) contract between a cosmetic manufacturer and a retailer with supply-chain coordination (SCC). By this QF and SCC arrangement, the retailer commits an amount of quantity of newly-developed products, and in return the manufacturer allows the retailer to adjust the order quantities of the commitment quantities based on the inventory balance status and the likely customer demand. We envisage that with this arrangement, both parties can attain maximum profit under the concept of the synergy effect. By developing a two-period dynamic model, we obtain an optimal replenishment strategy for the retailer and the optimal pricing scheme for the manufacturer. By comparing it between models with and without the SCC or quantity adjustment (QA), the numerical analysis and our case application support our theoretical model assertion that the synergy of attaining global (channel) optimal profit for both the manufacturer and the retailer is feasible. The results also show that the advantages of the QF contract with the SCC is very significant.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the costs/benefits of implementing the cross-docking strategy in a retail supply chain context using a cost model. In particular, the effects of ...using different typologies of cross-docking compared to traditional warehousing are investigated, taking into consideration an actual case study of a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company and a major French retailer.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a case study of an FMCG company and a major French retailer. The case study is used to develop a cost model and to identify the main cost parameters impacted by implementing the cross-docking strategy. Based on the cost model, a comparison of the main cost factors characterizing four different configurations is made. The configurations studied are, the traditional warehousing strategy (AS-IS configuration, the reference configuration for comparison), where both retailers and suppliers keep inventory in their warehouses; the cross-docking pick-by-line strategy, where inventory is removed from the retailer warehouse and the allocation and sorting are performed at the retailer distribution centre (DC) level (TO-BE1 configuration); the cross-docking pick-by-store strategy, where the allocation and sorting are done at the supplier DC level (TO-BE2 configuration); and finally a combination of cross-docking pick-by-line strategy and traditional warehousing strategy (TO-BE3 configuration).
Findings
The case study provides three main observations. First, compared to traditional warehousing, cross-docking with sorting and allocation done at the supplier level increases the entire supply chain cost by 5.3 per cent. Second, cross-docking with allocation and sorting of the products done at the retailer level is more economical than traditional warehousing: a 1 per cent reduction of the cost. Third, combining cross-docking and traditional warehousing reduces the supply chain cost by 6.4 per cent.
Research limitations/implications
A quantitative case study may not be highly generalisable; however, the findings form a foundation for further understanding of the reconfiguration of a retail supply chain.
Originality/value
This paper fills a gap by proposing a cost analysis based on a real case study and by investigating the costs and benefits of implementing different configurations in the retail supply chain context. Furthermore, the cost model may be used to help managers choose the right distribution strategy for their supply chain.
