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The aim of the study is to propose a model for conducting socially responsible operations in the mining industry, thriving to reach and sustain world-class standards in regard to profitability and environmental sustainability. The model uses a framework built upon a set of best practices in social responsibility by some of the largest mining companies in Peru.

The methodology adopted emphasizes the scrutiny of best practices among 92 initiatives undertaken by 10 companies – 5 large and 5 mid-sized companies as measured by the ratio “amount of investment” – which contributed most to prevent social conflict escalation. Data set received input from in-depth interviews to managers in charge of social affairs as well as from interviews to social constituents – beneficiaries and local authorities. Content analysis supported data processing and analysis of results.

Main findings comprise the following: distinct schemes for managing social responsibility in dependence upon impact evaluation indicators were found, which help to organize three models for conducting mining operations: traditional mining, up-to-date mining, and sustainability-oriented mining; evidence of distinct pathways undergone by large- and mid-sized companies in their quest to up-scale their corporate social responsibility profile.

Overall results from this study suggest the feasibility to modeling the social responsibility of mining companies in accordance to three dimensions – social, economic, and environmental – that draw from the analysis of best practices undertaken by large- and mid-sized companies.

The cluster supply chain is widely used in the professional towns in China, and improves the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises through integrating the supply chain with the industrial cluster. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper studies a cluster supply chain under vendor managed inventory (VMI) system, which includes vendors, third-party logistics (TPL) enterprises and retail enterprises, and aims to study the replenishment decisions and coordination contracts in the supply chain. The economic order quantity model is applied to analyze the influence of marginal transportation cost factor under two replenishment modes – direct delivery and milk-run delivery, in order to find out the optimal replenishment decisions corresponding to different marginal transportation cost factors. And then, the revenue sharing contract is used to identify the change of profits of enterprises in the supply chain before and after the coordination contract.

It is concluded that the marginal transportation cost factor is an important factor influencing the replenishment decision especially in milk-run delivery, and the introduction of the revenue sharing contract can improve the revenue in the supply chain.

This is the first study that explores the relationship between a single transport cost and a single transport batch of cluster supply chain in centralized VMI & TPL system. The conclusions of the study have certain theoretical significance for the decision making and coordination of cluster supply chain.