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This paper aims to explore optimal pricing policies and characteristics of a two-level dual-channel supply chain under price- and delivery time-sensitive demand. Besides price of the product, the delivery lead time is also a crucial factor in customers’ purchase decisions. A longer delivery lead time would diminish customers’ acceptance and faithfulness on the online channel, while a shorter delivery lead time would lead to incorporation of a substantial amount of logistics costs. In formulation of mathematical model, the effects of delivery lead time on the manufacturer and the retailer’s pricing strategies and profits in cooperative and non-cooperative dual-channel supply chain are explained analytically.

The analytical models are formed for both non-cooperative and cooperative scenarios under inconsistent and consistent pricing. The authors examine whether revenue sharing (RS) contract or delivery cost sharing contract can solely coordinate the dual-channel supply chain. If a single contract fails, then the combination of RS contract with delivery cost sharing to achieve channel coordination is discussed.

It is found that the RS or delivery cost sharing contract cannot coordinate the channel individually but revenue and delivery cost sharing contract jointly coordinate the channel. All analytical results are illustrated numerically, along with sensitivity analysis.

There are many correlated issues that need to be further investigated. First, one good extension to this research may include the consideration of the channel structure with competitive retailers. It will be interesting to analyze the performance of coordination mechanisms by considering the retailer as a Stackelberg leader in retailing.

The findings and subsequent methodological discussions aim to provide practical guidance to retailers who are allowing customers to choose how, when and where they interact and purchase by offering a combination of websites (fully functional and mobile-enabled), catalogs and stores with increasing convergence of channels.

Most firms in the fashion industry frequently design and promote new products, which leads to a two-period phenomenon in product sales. This study aims to examine the optimal advertising efforts of each channel member and the subsidy strategies of the manufacturer with retail competition in a two-period supply chain.

By utilizing the game theory, this study developed a cooperative advertising model that considers the element of retailer competition in a two-period supply chain.

The main results of this study are as follows. An increase in the subsidy rate of one retailer’s advertising cost will lead to a decrease in the share of the other. When a manufacturer’s marginal profit from one retailer is considerably larger than that from the other, the manufacturer will share more advertising cost with the former. This study demonstrates that a bilateral participation contract can achieve supply chain coordination and increases the likelihood of retailers to participate in this contract when competition effect is small.

First, product price is not a decision variable in this model. This concern can be studied in future work. Second, the one-manufacturer and two-retailer supply chain can be expanded to competitive manufacturers.

This study provides some decision references for the manufacturer and retailer on advertising strategies. The manufacturer can also gain insights into cooperative advertising strategy when facing a competitive retail environment.

Most previous studies related to cooperative advertising focused on a single-period supply chain. This study investigates cooperative advertising strategy with retail competition in two-period sales and explores the potential coordinating power of a bilateral participation contract.

Long-term contract is an important developing direction of China's coal industry coordination. This paper aims to discuss how to use contract for difference (CFD) to avoid risk and effectively increase the benefit of both coal and thermal power plants in the coal-electricity supply chain.

Based on prospect theory, this paper takes the risks and benefits of the coal and coal-fired power plants in the coal supply chain under CFD into balanced consideration to construct the contract coordination mechanism. In this mechanism, the coal demand in the coal supply chain equilibrium under centralized decision-making is regarded as the total annual volume of transactions needed to design the contract coordination mechanism and solve double marginalization. Then, based on prospect theory, in the construction of CFD, this paper takes the income of power and coal enterprises when they are in equilibrium under Stackelberg non-cooperative game as the reference point. In addition, considering that coal demand is a random variable, the CFD with a one-year trading session can be designed.

The research derives the coal price of the contract for difference, contract trading volume and its proportion of the total trading volume. A numerical example shows that the model above can be used to effectively avoid the risk of both coal and electricity sides.

To solve the conflict between coal enterprises and thermal power plants, let the coal-electricity supply chain be converted from non-cooperative game to cooperative game. Based on the prospect theory, this paper takes the income of the non-cooperative game of coal and thermal power plants as a reference point and considers how to design the coordination mechanism, the contract for difference, so as to make the two parties cooperate to solve the double marginal utility of the non-cooperative game in a chain supply. The main innovation of the work lies in the following: first, the coal demand when the coal-electrical supply chain is in balance under centralized decision-making is taken as the total annual trading volume needed to design the contract coordination mechanism and solve double marginalization. Second, based on prospect theory, in the construction of CFD, the benefits of coal-fired power plants and coal enterprises when both sides are in equilibrium under the Stackelberg non-cooperative game are taken as the reference points, and coal demand is taken as a random variable to design the CFD with a one-year transaction period. The price of coal that is not traded through CFD is calculated according to the daily market price. Third, this paper proposes the prospect M-V criterion of the risk-benefit equilibrium of both power and coal enterprises, which means that the risk-benefit equilibrium of both sides is the prospect variance effect of both sides relative to the reference point benefit divided by the prospect expectation effect.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how a company’s orientation enables sustainable practices in its supply chains. Specifically, it focusses on how the strategic orientation of a company may stimulate new behaviours in supply chains.

Two in-depth qualitative case studies were conducted. Each company’s orientation to sustainable supply chains was studied using cross-case analysis.

The organisations in this study have a market-driving (i.e. proactive) orientation instead of market-driven (i.e. responsive) behaviour. Using analysis from the process of change for sustainability and explaining some challenges faced by both organisations, findings indicate that a corporate strategy of sustainability modified the companies’ management processes, even for the company that changed its orientation during the time (i.e. sustainability was not the main strategy at first). Practical examples of actions are provided to illustrate the study’s conclusion that a corporate orientation towards sustainability is an enabling factor in developing sustainable supply chain management (SCM).

Strategic management plays an important role in a company’s orientation towards sustainability – internally and throughout its supply chains. Based on the findings, future research should measure the effect of a company’s orientation on sustainable SCM.

This study contributes to the understanding of companies’ strategic orientations and explores ways to introduce sustainability into supply chains.

The paper examines an underexplored debate regarding to how strategic orientations are related to sustainable SCM, focussing on both market-driving (i.e. proactive) and market-driven (i.e. responsive) orientations.

This research aims to examine which cooperative contract (wholesale-price contract or cost-sharing contract) can more effectively upgrade the green degree of product and promote demand when considering consumer reference price effect under different power structures.

This research investigates a dyadic green supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer. Four Stackelberg game models with a cost-sharing contract or a wholesale-price contract are built in retailer-led and manufacturer-led scenarios, respectively. Using backward induction, the optimal green decision under each model is obtained. In addition, the optimal cooperative contract is proposed by comparing these four models.

It is found that under consumer reference price effect, a cost-sharing contract outperforms a wholesale-price contract in upgrading product greenness and promoting demand. Under any single contract, the retailer-led situation is more conducive to improving product greenness than the manufacturer-led situation. Moreover, consumer reference price effect would reduce the sharing ratio of a cost-sharing contract when the manufacturer dominates, but it could mitigate the problem of double marginalization by reducing wholesale and retail prices under both types of contracts, which would enhance consumer surplus.

It is a new attempt to incorporate consumer reference price effect and power structure into a green supply chain framework and proposes a novel demand function that simultaneously emphasizes consumer reference price effect, consumer environmental awareness and product green attribute. In addition, it provides managerial insights for business managers to choose green cooperative contracts with consumer reference price effect under different power structures.

This study aims to investigate the conflicting views in supply chain and strategic management literature regarding cooperative supply chain relationships (CSCR) and firm performance. Supply chain literature suggests a universally positive impact of CSCR on performance, irrespective of a firm’s strategy. In contrast, strategic management literature contends that the effectiveness of CSCR depends on their alignment with the firm’s competitive strategy. The research aims to clarify this disparity, offering insights into the strategic use of CSCR for enhancing firm performance.

This paper theorizes the integration of perspectives for the impact of CSCR on firm performance by examining the relationships considering the alignment of cost leadership and product differentiation strategies with supplier and customer relationships. Plant-level survey data is analyzed using regression techniques to test four hypotheses.

All four main relationships (cost leadership, product differentiation, supplier relationship and customer relationship) on firm performance are statistically significant. However, cost leadership firms are better aligned to their chosen strategy when they have strong relationships with suppliers, whereas similar relationships with customers create misalignment, negatively influencing firm performance. In contrast, product differentiators benefit by investing in relationships with customers rather than with suppliers.

A firm’s performance does not solely depend on its CSCR efforts but on aligning them with the firm’s overall strategy. Therefore, managers need to be cognizant of the firm’s competitive strategy when investing in CSCR. Failing to do so could negatively impact firm performance and, eventually, its ability to compete in the marketplace.

Scholars have advocated for the importance of examining competing perspectives of phenomena, both within and across various bodies of literature, as cross-disciplinary analysis often brings enhanced focus and depth, leading to improved understanding. This research is one of the initial efforts to empirically analyze the varying perspectives on CSCR in supply chain and strategic management literature. This cross-disciplinary approach can yield a more integrated perspective.

To explore the factors affecting continuity of cooperative electronic supply chain relationships in Taiwanese motor industry.

This study has developed a research framework that integrates the three perspectives of resource dependence, risk perception, and relationship marketing to identify the factors affecting the continuity of a cooperative electronic supply chain. After constructing a structural equation model, empirical testing on 851 raw material and spare parts suppliers for the Taiwanese motor industry was conducted.

All path coefficients in the proposed model were statistically significant, and were as hypothesized. Resource dependence, trust, and relationship commitment are positively related to the continuity of the cooperative electronic relationship. Risk perception is negatively related to the continuity of the cooperative electronic relationship.

This paper has theoretically developed an extensive set of interrelationships among these variables (resource dependency, perceived risk, trust, relationship commitment, and continuity of cooperative electronic relationships), illustrating their comparative effects on supplier intention to use the internet for on‐line transactions.

This empirical study provides consistent support for the proposed business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐commerce acceptance model. Given the high explanatory power of the resulting model, it is likely to serve as the basic model for predicting supplier behavior, and the continuity of enhanced understanding of cooperative electronic relationships.

Previous studies did not fully address the relevant influential factors related to the continuity of cooperative electronic supply chain relationships or the causal relationships among these factors. The primary contribution of this research is the integration of constructs associated with resources, environmental uncertainty, and relationship marketing, into a coherent model that jointly predicts supplier acceptance of e‐commerce.

The managerial questions of this paper are as follows, and the authors are trying to solve them: How revenue sharing contract (CSR) degree and government subsidy affect the agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, revenue-sharing contract [RSC] and cooperative) would be more effective in motivating manufacturers and retailer to increase effort and improve agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, RSC and cooperative) would make manufacturer and retailer better off?

Considering the jointing quality effort and contract decision in green agri-food supply chain, this paper proposes six models that consider CSR of manufacturer and retailer, and then the obtained optimal solutions are compared and analyzed. At the same time, the impact of government subsidies is analyzed, and corresponding conclusions are drawn.

The results show that, first of all, whether the increasing CSR of the manufacturer or the retailer can motivate both parties to improve the agri-food quality effort investment. Second, the WPC and RSC contract may play different role in different cases. Finally, under the model with government subsidies, regarding positive influence of government subsidies on efforts of manufacturer and retailer, quality and profits of members is investigated. Based on these conclusions, this study puts forward the following policy suggestions. Firstly, governments should formulate reasonable subsidy policies to support manufacturer and retailer to improve the agri-food quality, thereby promoting green industries' development. Secondly, manufacturer and retailer should actively improve CSR and strengthen the effort of agri-food so as to advance quality. Finally, manufacturer and retailer can choose cooperative model or WPC contract.

In this paper, one manufacturer and one retailer are considered. Since the agri-food supply chain structure in reality is more complicated, the future research direction can consider the supply chain structure with one manufacturer and multiple retailers. In addition, this paper only considers the subsidy, and future research can classify the subsidy into different types.

The study makes two substantive contributions to the body of knowledge in the field of sustainable operations:(1) incorporating quality-based demand function in supply chain and dynamic process of agri-food quality; (2) exploring the impact of CSR awareness of members and subsidy of government on agri-food quality, and comparing the influence in different models.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the different roles of intra- and inter-organizational information and communication technology (ICT) in improving supply chain performance. It proposes different mechanisms to explain how intra- and inter-organizational ICT interact with supply chain integration, and contribute to supply chain performance. The main research question is: What are the distinctive roles of inter-organizational ICT and intra-organizational ICT in improving supply chain performance?

The paper builds on original survey data of 320 Chinese manufacturing firms gathered in China.

The paper shows that inter-organizational ICT has a positive direct relationship with supply chain performance and this relationship is mediated by supply chain integration. Intra-organizational ICT has no direct relationship with supply chain performance. However, intra-organizational ICT moderates the effect of the supply chain integration on supply chain performance.

The paper argues that more research into the specific roles and interaction of ICT with business processes is needed in order to better understand its role in improving supply chain performance.

For managers the findings show that inter- and intra-organizational ICT play a different role in the improvement of supply chain performance: the first leading to more supply chain integration, which in turn improves performance, while the second needs additional investment in integrative practices to help improve supply chain performance.

This paper adds to the debate on the role of ICT in improving supply chain performance and shows that a detailed investigation into underlying mechanisms, and the interaction of ICT with other business processes is valuable.

The analysis focuses on the perspective of overall strategic fit in the supply chain of onion seed in Nepal. The purpose of this paper is to analyze current status of onion seed sector in Nepal from the perspective of selected functional strategies that fit in supply chain, and also identifies how various actors involved coordinate among each other.

The integrated approach has been used. It is an actor-oriented approach used to trace product flows. Supply chains generally include several actors for the onion seeds supply chain in Nepal, all those actors may or may not be applicable. However, initial approach would be to first look for these actors then subsequently identify existing supply and its actors. Some traditional methods of product and market analysis isolate operational costs along various stages of production. But, this paper used more comprehensive methodology that has taken into account an entire spectrum of associated activities and inputs.

Result revealed that the market actors of supply chain are taking significant benefit of value addition due to more investment in value creation. Vertical coordination is completely absent and the existence of horizontal coordination is in fragile form. The functional strategies in the upstream as well as the market side are not properly matching with the preference of the downstream actors of supply chain. It is suggested that the supply chain activities should work with different functional strategies such as proper drying and storage of seed and production of preferred varieties to satisfy the need of end consumers.

It covers a single crop.

The findings and methodological discussions aim at providing practical guidance for supply chain researchers on how to analyze the strategic fit in supply chain.