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The increasing prevalence of a wide range of infectious diseases, as well as the underwhelming results of vaccination rates that may be traced back to problems with vaccine procurement and distribution, have brought to the fore the importance of vaccine supply chain (VSC) management in recent years. VSC is the cornerstone of effective vaccination; hence, it is crucial to enhance its performance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where immunization rates are not satisfactory.

In this paper, the authors focus on VSC performance improvement of India by proposing supply contracts under demand uncertainty. The authors propose three contracts – wholesale price (WSP), cost sharing (CS) and incentive mechanism (IM) for the government-operated immunization program of India.

The authors' findings indicate that IM is capable of coordinating the supply chain, whereas the other two contracts are inefficient for the government. To validate the model, it is applied to a real-world scenario of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in India, and the findings show that an IM contract improves the overall efficiency of the system by 23.72%.

Previous studies focused mainly on the influenza VSC industry within developed nations. Nonetheless, there exists a dearth of literature pertaining to the examination of supply contracts and their feasibility for immunization programs that are administered by the government and aimed at optimizing societal benefits. The authors' findings can be beneficial to the immunization program of India to optimize their VSC cost.

The importance of service firms cooperating with digital platforms is widely acknowledged. The authors study three contractual relationships (fixed-cost, cost-sharing, and profit-sharing) between service firms (specifically hotels) and digital platforms in a highly fragmented service supply chain to examine which of these contract types optimizes profits.

The authors extend prior models analyzing the optimal expected total profit from the travel service firm (hotel)–digital platform relationship, providing new insights into each contract type’s ability to coordinate decentralized systems and optimize profits for both parties.

This study finds that fixed cost contracts cannot coordinate the decentralized system. Cost-sharing contracts can coordinate the decentralized system but only allow one channel profit split. In contrast, profit-sharing contracts may not always perfectly coordinate the decentralized system but support alternative profit allocations. Practically, both profit-sharing and cost-sharing contracts are preferable to fixed-cost contracts.

The paper includes implications for travel service firm managers to consider when structuring contracts with digital platforms to focus on profit optimization. Profit-sharing contracts are most preferable when cost and revenue data are fully shared between parties, while cost-sharing contracts are preferable over fixed-cost contracts.

This study extends prior investigations into the utility of different contract types on the optimal profit of a travel service firm (hotel)-digital platform provider relationship. The research fills a gap in the literature concerning the contracts used in these relationship types.

This study intends to explore the relationship between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. The following questions are discussed: (1) As a representative new financial development model, what is the role of digital finance in the vertical specialization of firms? (2) If digital finance improves the level of vertical specialization of firms, what is the mechanism behind such improvement? (3) How does digital finance impact the vertical specialization of firms in different regions, industries, and firms?

A two-way fixed-effect model of panel data is proposed to verify the relationship between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. This model is constructed by matching the city-level data of digital finance with the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2018. Meanwhile, the instrumental variable (IV) method and difference-in-difference (DID) method are adopted to deal with the endogeneity problem of the model.

The authors' study finds that digital finance has significantly improved the level of vertical specialization of firms. The result is robust under the endogeneity consideration and a series of robustness tests. After the dimensionality of the index is reduced, the depth of digital finance usage is more conducive to the improvement of the vertical specialization of firms compared with the width of digital finance coverage and the level of financial digitization. Digital finance mainly improves the level of vertical specialization of firms by reducing transaction costs and increasing the market thickness of the intermediate products. Moreover, digital finance has certain heterogeneity in promoting the vertical specialization of firms, an effect that is more significant in the eastern region, manufacturing industry and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The first limitation is the mechanism test. This research only analyzes the mechanism from transaction cost and the market thickness of the intermediate products. With the rapid development of information technology, digital finance will be further integrated into people's production and life. There will then be more mechanisms that should be explored between digital finance and the vertical specialization of firms. Another limitation is the data sample of this paper. The conclusions of this research are based only on the data of listed companies. However, in the authors' opinion, the specialization level of small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) should be higher. Therefore, the conclusions of this work are underestimated, which can be considered as the lower limit of digital finance for enterprise specialization.

As a favorable financing channel to supplement traditional financial service functions, digital finance plays a critical role in the operating efficiency of enterprises and the effective allocation of macro resources. The authors' research shows that digital finance has significantly improved the vertical specialization of firms. This conclusion provides guides to improve the production efficiency of enterprises and the quality of economic development.

This paper has three main contributions. (1) The relationship between financial development and the vertical specialization of firms is innovatively discussed from the perspective of digital finance, which implies that digital finance can effectively promote the level of vertical specialization of firms. (2) This paper provides new perspectives and ideas to reveal the impact mechanism of digital finance on the real economy by systematically analyzing the mechanism of digital finance on the vertical specialization of firms from the perspectives of transaction costs and financing constraints. (3) The regional differences in the development of digital finance, industry differences in the vertical specialization of firms and differences in the nature of enterprise property rights are all under consideration, which improves the effectiveness and pertinence of digital finance in promoting the vertical specialization of firms.

This study examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and managers' ex ante strategic choice on firms’ fixed and variable costs structure, i.e. cost rigidity and the moderating effect of government contracts and political connections.

Using a sample of 4,162 US firms during 2003–2019 and EPU measure from Baker et al. (2016), the authors examine the association between EPU and cost rigidity using multivariate regression analysis. The authors also examine the moderating effects of government customers and political connections using the subsampling method.

This study finds that increases in EPU leads to higher cost rigidity, suggesting that managers tend to look ahead and make an ex ante commitment to invest more in fixed costs to avoid congestion costs in anticipation of future product demand during EPU. The study also finds that the presence of government customers and political connections moderates the need for adopting greater cost rigidity.

This study measures firms' cost rigidity based on archival data. Future studies could utilize managers' cost structure choices using firms' internal management cost structure forecasts data to measure cost rigidity to examine the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU.

This study demonstrates that managers tend to make a proactive commitment to invest in fixed inputs when facing demand uncertainty from EPU to avoid congestion costs. This study also highlights the value of having government contracts and political connections by demonstrating that managers are less concerned about the congestion costs, hence weakening the impact of EPU on cost rigidity when they have government as major customers and/or political connections.

This study extends the management accounting literature by documenting that cost rigidity is related to EPU and that the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU also depends on whether the firm has government as major customers and/or political connections or not.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of greening and promotional effort dependent stochastic market demand on the remanufacturer's and the collector's profits when the quality of used products for remanufacturing is uncertain in a reverse supply chain.

The proposed model is developed to obtain optimal profits for the remanufacturer, the collector and the whole supply chain. Both the centralized and decentralized scenarios are considered. To motivate the collector through profit enhancement, the remanufacturer designs a cost-sharing contract. Through numerical examples and sensitivity analysis, the consequences of greenness and promotional effort on optimal profits are investigated.

The results show that the remanufacturer gets benefited from greening and promotional effort enhancement. However, a higher value of minimum acceptable quality level decreases the profits of the manufacturer and the collector. A cost-sharing contract coordinates the supply chain and improves the remanufacturer's and the collector's profits. Besides green innovation, remanufacturing mitigates the harmful effects of waste in the environment.

Two different viewpoints of remanufacturing are considered here – environmental sustainability and economic sustainability. This paper considers a reverse supply chain with a remanufacturer who remanufactures the used products collected by the collector. The quality of used products is uncertain, and customer demand is stochastic, green and promotional effort sensitive. These two types of uncertainty with green and promotional effort sensitive customer demand differs the current paper from the existing literature.

This study aims to introduce and evaluate the COPULA framework, a construction project monitoring solution based on blockchain designed to address the inherent challenges of construction project monitoring and management. This research aims to enhance efficiency, transparency and trust within the dynamic and collaborative environment of the construction industry by leveraging the decentralized, secure and immutable nature of blockchain technology.

This paper employs a comprehensive approach encompassing the formulation of the COPULA model, the development of a digital solution using the ethereum blockchain and extensive testing to assess performance in terms of execution cost, time, integrity, immutability and security. A case analysis is conducted to demonstrate the practical application and benefits of blockchain technology in real-world construction project monitoring scenarios.

The findings reveal that the COPULA framework effectively addresses critical issues such as centralization, privacy and security vulnerabilities in construction project management. It facilitates seamless data exchange among stakeholders, ensuring real-time transparency and the creation of a tamper-proof communication channel. The framework demonstrates the potential to significantly enhance project efficiency and foster trust among all parties involved.

While the study provides promising insights into the application of blockchain technology in construction project monitoring, future research could explore the integration of COPULA with existing project management methodologies to broaden its applicability and impact. Further investigations into the solution’s scalability and adaptation to various construction project types and sizes are also suggested.

This research offers a comprehensive blockchain solution specifically tailored for the construction industry. Unlike prior studies focusing on theoretical aspects, this paper presents a practical, end-to-end solution encompassing model formulation, digital implementation, proof-of-concept testing and validation analysis. The COPULA framework marks a significant advancement in the digital transformation of construction project monitoring, providing a novel approach to overcoming longstanding industry challenges.

I historically compare changes in institutional frameworks creating academic positions linked to temporary employment by analyzing university employment statistics in Chile, Colombia, Germany, and the USA. I find that temporary academic positions were institutionalized through the creation of previously inexistent academic categories called a contrata in Chile, de cátedra in Colombia, “junior professor” without tenure in Germany and “postdoc” in the USA; used in higher education and employment laws since 1989, 1992, 2002, and 1974, respectively. Under institutional frameworks demanding the maximization of students and research, universities have increasingly contracted academics through temporary contracts under rationales that differ between regions. In Colombia and Chile, public university leaders and owners of private universities contract such teaching positions to expand student numbers through lowering costs. In Germany and the USA, employment insecurity is mostly driven by temporary scientific positions under a main rationale of scientific expansion. The share of temporary positions has increased exponentially in Colombia and Germany in recent decades, whereas in the USA there has only been an increase since 2012. Moreover, in Chile, the share of permanent positions has decreased since 2012. The common trend is one of isomorphism of vertical academic structures sharing a pyramidal form, with a wide base of academics working under conditions of contractual insecurity. Such trends follow a rationale for maximization of student numbers as well as administration, and scientific production that is in tension with prioritizing wellbeing and improvement of academics’ working conditions. Yet, in these environments, the institution of tenure in the USA and recent Chilean regulations on accreditation represent mechanisms counteracting precarious employment.

To study these issues, the authors chose a GFSC with one producer and one material supplier as research object, the supplier will offer green material to the producer and the producer will make green food using green production technology. Then, the authors proposed that consumers' perceived value was determined by the trustworthiness levels of the related green and quality-safety information provided by the supplier and the producer. Then, considering the trustworthiness levels of the green and quality information provided by the supplier and the producer, the authors improved the demand function. Afterwards, we constructed four investment models and their income models are built and then a cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contract (hereafter, CSRS) was adopted to coordinate the GFSC.

With the growth of consumers environmental awareness and life level, consumers' requirements for green and high quality food are growing. In recently years, to increase consumers' perceived trustworthiness on the product greenness and quality levels, stakeholders in green food supply chain (hereafter, GFSC) start to adopt the blockchain-based traceability system (hereafter, BLTS). For investors, they need to know the investment conditions and how to coordinate the GFSC.

(1) When the revenue-sharing coefficient is less than three-fourths and higher then a certain vaule, the cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contract can make the GFSC coordinate. (2) The investment cost threshold of the BLTS has a positive relationship with the trustworthiness improvement levels of the green and quality information, the green degree of food products and the quality of food products. (3) In the proposed four investment situations, as the growth of consumers perceived credibility coefficient about the greenness information and the quality information, chain members' revenues will increase. In addition, comparing with co-investing the BLTS, benefits of chain members are lower than them in the sole investment model.

(1) The demand function we proposed can help chain members forecast market demand to support production or ordering decisions. (2) The investment decision policies can offer a theoretical reference for chain members to use the BLTS. (3) The CSRS will offer the theoretical reference for coordinating the supply chain after using the BLTS. Furthermore, our study method can be referenced by other scholars. (4) The study method can offer a method reference for researchers who do a similar discussion in a manufacturing supply chain. Although, our research cannot guide the industrial practices, it can serve as a reference of the similar research in industry.

This study aims to establish a centralized decision-making game model and manufacturer-led Stackelberg game model based on factors of risk aversion of supply chain members and product greenness. The research aims to study whether the introduction of the “cost + risk sharing” contract affects coordination of this type of green supply by calculating the optimal decision of each mode.

This research designs a supply chain model under centralized and decentralized decision-making. This model uses the Stackelberg game to calculate the optimal decision under decentralized decision-making to evaluate the effect of a green supply chain and then analyze the “cost + risk sharing” contract and the degree of coordination of the supply chain. A sensitivity analysis is conducted on the centralized mode for the impact of variables on the supply chain.

This research finds a double marginalization effect in decentralized decision-making, and the risk aversion coefficient plays a decisive role in the utility of supply chain members. The specific range of risk- and cost-sharing factors allows supply chain members to achieve Pareto improvements and provides decision-making based on the corresponding management strategies according to each other’s risk preference degree.

The influence of each variable on the green supply chain in the centralized mode is studied by MATLAB numerical simulation. It provides reference for green supply chain members to formulate corresponding management strategies according to each other's risk preference degree.

This research innovatively considers manufacturers and retailers to explore the market demand for product greenness. It introduces a novel “cost + risk sharing” contract to coordinate the green supply chain.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) enable the synergistic integration of virtual models with the physical environment. This integration is gaining recognition for its potential to enhance construction project information management, thereby contributing to improved cost management in construction. Similarly, quantity surveyor (QS) plays a key role in construction projects by estimating and monitoring construction costs. Consequently, this research aims to explore redefining the role of QSs by integrating CPS.

The research adopted an interpretivism stance to collect and analyse data. Two rounds of 21 and 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted, with experts selected through heterogeneous purposive sampling. Code-based content analysis was used to analyse the data using NVivo12. MS Visio data visualisation tool was used to present the findings.

It is empirically proven the potential of CPS to facilitate nine key roles of QSs in all stages of the RIBA plan of work through the identification of 15 CPS applications and technologies. Nine key roles of QSs that CPS can facilitate were identified as preliminary estimation, measurement and quantification, contract administration, preparation of BOQ, interim valuation and payments, tender and contract documentation, cost planning, cost control and procurement advice. The study explored how adopting CPS technologies can transform traditional quantity surveying practices and enhance their value within the construction industry.

The findings add to the body of knowledge by redefining the role of QS through the integration of CPS for the first time and then by highlighting the usages of CPS in the construction industry rather than limiting it to a specific sector of the construction industry, as previous studies have done. This research uncovers several other research arenas on CPS as being the very first research to evaluate CPS to facilitate key roles of QSs. The findings can enhance the awareness and the practical implementation of CPS by intervening to form more partnerships among application developers and industry leaders.