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In this paper, the authors study the production and pricing decisions of a remanufacturing supply chain composed of a supplier, an assembler and a remanufacturer, in which the remanufacturing of components requires patent licensing from the supplier.

The authors consider three different models with government subsidy for remanufacturing: (1) no government subsidies; (2) the government subsidizes the remanufacturing behavior of the supplier and (3) the government subsidizes the remanufacturing behavior of the remanufacturer and use the Stackelberg game model to solve and analyze the equilibrium wholesale prices of components and the equilibrium outputs of new and remanufactured products under three subsidy modes.

The results show that the equilibrium wholesale prices of two kinds of components decrease with the unit patent licensing fee and the unit government subsidy, and the equilibrium quantity of the remanufactured products under the three modes is obviously higher than that of the new products.

Finally through numerical simulation, it is found that the equilibrium profits of the supplier, the manufacturer and the supply chain increase monotonously in relation to the unit government subsidy, while the optimal profit of the assembler in relation to the unit government subsidy tends to decrease first and then increase.

Nowadays, climate change and environmental pollution have become major international concerns, in which logistics and manufacturing activities are playing the major role. In the past decade, more attention has been directed toward environmental issues than ever before. The Paris agreement is one of the most recent milestones in this regard. Due to local and international legislation, managers are highly encouraged to seek out sustainable innovations and strategies to reduce the negative impacts of their business activities. An array of academic and practical activities has been formed around the greening of the supply chain (SC). This paper attempts to review and classify green supply chain management (GSCM) disciplines and best practices from a practical point of view. The authors also investigate the different areas of application and review the GSCM practices in some well-known companies. On this basis, the paper disclose the superiority of Apple company over the other studied cases in applying green practices, particularly in the manufacturing and design areas, while the parcel delivery company has been quite active in the green transportation and green marketing. It is also shown that all of the reviewed cases have been successful in implementing green logistics initiatives thus far.

This study aims to examine and understand the impact of reverse logistics adoption on firms' digitalization and collaboration activities. Specifically, leveraging the knowledge-based view, this study examines how adopting sustainable logistic practices (reverse logistics) prepares firms to embrace digitalization and encourages them to collaborate with other organizations.

The study used longitudinal survey data from two waves (2017 and 2019) from the Mannheim Centre for European Economic Research. The authors used the negative binomial regression analyses to test the impact of reverse logistics adoption on the digitalization and inter-organizational collaboration dependent count variables.

The study's findings highlight the usefulness of reverse logistics in enabling digitalization and inter-organizational collaboration. The results show that the firms investing in sustainable supply chains will be better positioned to nurture digitalization and inter-organizational collaboration.

For resource-bound managers, this study provides an important insight into prioritizing activities by highlighting how reverse logistics can facilitate digitalization and collaboration. The study demonstrates that the knowledge generated by reverse logistics adoption can be an essential pillar and enabler toward achieving firms' digitalization and collaboration goals.

The study is among the first to examine the effect of reverse logistics adoption on firm activities that are not strictly associated with the circular economy (digitalization and collaboration). Utilizing the knowledge-based view, this study reports on the additional benefits of reverse logistics implementation previously not discussed in the literature.

This study aims to aid theory building, the use of decision theory (DT) concepts in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) research is examined.

An abductive approach considers two DT concepts, Snowden’s Cynefin framework for sense-making and Keeney’s value-focussed decision analysis, in a systematic literature review of 160 peer-reviewed papers in English.

Around 60 per cent of the papers on decision-making in SSCM come from operational research (OR), which makes explicit use of DT. These are almost all normative and rationalist and focussed on structured decision contexts. Some exceptions seek to address unstructured decision contexts via Complex Adaptive Systems or Soft Systems Methodology. Meanwhile, a second set, around 16 per cent, comes from business ethics and are empirical, behavioural decision research. Although this set does not explicitly refer to DT, the empirical evidence here supports Keeney’s value-focussed analysis.

There is potential for theory building in SSCM using DT, but the research only addresses SSCM research (including corporate responsibility and ethics) and not DT in SCM or wider sustainable development research.

Use of particular decision analysis methods for SSCM may be improved by better understanding different decision contexts.

The research shows potential synthesis with ethical DT absent from DT and SCM research.

Empirical behavioural decision analysis for SSCM is considered alongside normative, rational analysis for the first time. Value-focussed DT appears useful for unstructured decision contexts found in SSCM.

Empirical, behavioural decision analysis for SSCM is considered alongside normative rational analysis for the first time. Value-focussed DT appears useful for unstructured decision contexts found in SSCM.

This study aims to focus on the optimal green R&D of a capital-constrained supply chain under different channel power structures as well as the impact of capital constraint, financing cost, channel power structure and cost-reducing efficiency on green R&D and supply chain profitability.

A two-echelon supply chain is considered. The upstream firm engages in green R&D but has capital constraints that can be overcome by external financing. Green R&D is beneficial to reduce production costs and increase consumer demand. Based on whether or not the upstream firm is capital constrained and dominates the supply chain, four models are developed.

Capital constraints significantly lower green R&D and supply chain profitability. Transferring leadership from the upstream to the downstream firms leads to higher green R&D levels and downstream firm profitability, whereas the upstream firm's profitability is increased (decreased) if green R&D investment efficiency is high (low) enough. Greater financing costs reduce green R&D and downstream firm profitability; however, the upstream firm's profitability under the model in which it functions as the follower increases if the initial capital is sufficient. More importantly, empirical analysis based on practice data is used to verify the theoretical results reported above.

This study reveals how upstream firms in supply chains decide green R&D decisions in situations with capital constraints, providing managers and governments with an understanding of the impact of capital constraint, channel power structure, financing cost and cost-reducing efficiency on supply chain green R&D and profitability.

The major contributions are the exploration of supply chain green R&D by taking into consideration channel power structures and cost-reducing efficiency and the validation of theoretical results using practice data.

Information-facilitated product recovery system (IFPRS) has captivated industry attention and has developed into a matter of consideration among the researchers because of enhanced climate concerns, jurisdictive logics and societal liabilities. Although IFPRS implementation has become an essential aspect in manufacturing industries functional in the developed nations, still, limited consideration has been given in the literature to analyze the issues to IFPRS implementation for a circular economy (CE) in emerging and developing nations. Therefore, the objective of this study is to recognize issues to implementing IFPRS for a CE in context of select manufacturing industries in India.

In this study, 24 potential issues are established from the literature and from suggestions from the experts. The issues are clubbed under five different perspectives of technical, government, organization, policy and knowledge. Further, fuzzy VIKOR technique is applied on the results obtained to prioritize the identified issues. A sensitivity analysis has been carried out to check the robustness of the framework.

The present study shows that lack of skills and expertise in IFPRS implementation for a CE (I2), deficient capital to implement a CE in IFPRS (I₉), inadequate in adopting recent IT technology (I₁₈), feasibility of IFPRS employment for a CE (I₆) and no efficient training and program to CE adoption (I₂₁) are the top five potential issues in implementing IFPRS practices for a CE in Indian manufacturing industries.

In literature, limited study has been observed on determining issues to implementation of IFPRS for a CE. A more systematic method and statistical confirmation is necessary to establish further new confronting issues. This study is limited to Indian manufacturing industries.

The main contribution of this study includes identification of issues and later prioritizing them to reflect their severity. This would help the industry practitioners to formulate strategies for handling the issues conveniently.

Complaint service management, aimed at improving customer satisfaction, provides important content for incorporation into studying a closed-loop supply chain. An analysis of the relationship between two provides the basis for probing the role of complaint management (CM) in the closed-loop supply chain to help it perform more efficiently and effectively through the application of advanced technologies. This paper considers how CM can be computed combining computer communication and information technologies. This computing process involves collection, evaluation and disposal. Using computer telephone integration technology, an integrated multi-channel system is designed; complaint and production evaluated through an intelligent decision support system; and CM processing system established to implement corresponding disposal which reflects the utility of CM. This research on the process of incorporating CM into our studies has significance for computing business service in the future. Based on exergoeconomics theory, the closed-loop supply chain is discussed, and the metric about “system negative environment effect” is introduced to system performance in terms of energy expenditures; a case study illustrates the efficacy of the process

This study aims to focus on building a conceptual closed-loop vaccine supply chain (CLVSC) to decrease vaccine wastage and counterfeit/fake vaccines.

Through a focused literature review, the framework for the CLVSC is described, and the system dynamics (SD) research methodology is used to build a causal loop diagram (CLD) of the proposed model.

In the battle against COVID-19, waste management systems have become overwhelmed, which has created negative environmental and extremely hazardous societal impacts. A key contributing factor is unused vaccine doses, shown as a source for counterfeit/fake vaccines. The findings identify a CLVSC design and transshipment operations to decrease vaccine wastage and the potential for vaccine theft.

This study contributes to establishing a pandemic-specific VSC structure. The proposed model informs the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as potential future pandemics.

A large part of the negative impact of counterfeit/fake vaccines is on human well-being, and this can be avoided with proper CLVSC.

This study develops a novel overarching SD CLD by integrating the epidemic model of disease transmission, VSC and closed-loop structure. This study enhances the policymakers’ understanding of the importance of vaccine waste collection, proper handling and threats to the public, which are born through illicit activities that rely on stolen vaccine doses.

This study aimed to develop the integration of the multiperiod production-distribution model in a closed-loop supply chain involving carbon emission and traceability. The developed model was for agricultural food (agri-food) products, considering the reverse flow of food waste from the disposal center (composting center) to producers.

The results indicate that integrating the production and distribution model considering food waste recycling provides low carbon emissions in lower total costs. The sensitivity analysis also found that there are trade-offs between production and distribution rate and food waste levels on carbon emission and traceability.

This study focuses on the mathematical modeling of a multiperiod production-distribution formulation for a closed-loop supply chain.

The model of the agri-food closed-loop supply chain in this study that considers food recycling and carbon emissions would help stakeholders involved in the agri-food supply chain to reduce food waste and carbon emissions.

The purpose of this article is based on the unit patent license fee model in the closed-loop supply chain.

This paper analyzes the impact of the bundling strategy of the retailer selling new products and remanufactured products on the closed-loop supply chain under the condition that the original manufacturer produces new products and the remanufacturer produces remanufacturing products.

The results show that alternative products can be bundled, and in many cases, the bundling of remanufactured products and new products is better than selling alone.

If the retailer chooses bundling, for the remanufacturer, when certain conditions are met, the benefits of bundling are greater than the separate sales at that time; for the original manufacturer, when the recycling price sensitivity coefficient is high, the bundling is better than separate sales.