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This paper explores the conditions in which logistics service providers (LSPs) can compete or collaborate with banks in offering inventory financing as a supply chain finance (SCF) service.

A multiple case study research methodology was adopted. The case study involved six LSPs across Europe. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews.

The results highlighted that an attractive credit demand for LSPs consists in suppliers with high amounts of inventory or borrowing needs that go beyond their borrowing capacity from the perspective of a bank. LSPs can respond to this demand when they have three specific capabilities as follows: risk assessment, risk monitoring and organizational capabilities. The offer of inventory financing can be controlled by the LSPs or by the banks. When the LSPs control the offer, they offer different conditions compared to the banks in terms of credit rationing, transaction costs, payment flexibility, tax rate advantage and financial risk management. When the banks control the offer, the LSPs influence the nature of the SCF services only in terms of credit rationing and transaction costs. The LSPs seem to easily develop risk assessment and risk mitigation capabilities, while the organisational capabilities appear to be the most challenging to build, and when absent they create a barrier to the provision of inventory financing.

The value of the paper is twofold. First, the paper provides a comprehensive taxonomy of the factors conditioning the role of the LSPs in the provision of inventory financing as a SCF service. Second, the paper clarifies the link between the factors and the different roles played by the LSPs.

Against the background of the scanty knowledge about inventory financing in supply chains, the goal of this paper is to provide a conceptual explanation of the relevance and the implications of alternative inventory financing by a logistics service provider (LSP).

First, based on a literature review, inventory‐related conflicts of interest between actors in the supply chain are discussed. Second, a concept of inventory financing through an LSP is developed. Third, the concept introduced is illustrated by means of a numerical example.

The results of an illustrative example from Switzerland and a rough revenue and expenditure calculation highlight the effects that inventory financing through a logistics service provider may have for LSP. For the LSP profit depends mainly on the value and amount of the goods to be financed.

The results of this paper can be applied to logistics service providers. The model developed can accordingly be used to calculate the additional effects of inventory financing service.

This research offers initial insights into the importance of inventory financing from an LSP perspective. As activities in this field may offer additional profits and differentiation options, decision makers at logistics service providers might want to estimate the potential resting in this expansion of their service catalogue.

For decades, financing constraints have been a major obstacle to corporate performance. Volumes have been written about the probable factors that can help firms alleviate such financial constraints. Nonetheless, empirical evidence concerning the various perspectives on how inventory control may influence financing constraints has been surprisingly scant. Using the resource- and region-based view as theoretical lenses, this study seeks to estimate the relationship between lean inventory, regional financial technology (fintech) and financing constraints.

Utilizing a large-scale sample of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China's manufacturing sector, the authors empirically test their hypotheses by using hierarchical linear regression models with multiple high-dimensional fixed effects.

Results indicate that firms with higher levels of inventory leanness and those located in more fintech-developed regions are less likely to encounter financing constraints. Furthermore, inventory leanness and regional fintech ecosystem development interact with each other to mitigate financing constraints. Moreover, inventory leanness significantly decreases firms' financing constraints when the regional fintech ecosystem is highly developed.

The present research contributes to the literature on the interface of supply chain management and financial management. It also provides managerial implications for policymakers and SME stakeholders.

The paper aims to explore the optimal strategies of inventory financing when the risk-averse retailer has different objectives, in the presence of multi-risk, i.e. demand risk, non-operational risk and retailer's strategic default risk.

This paper develops an inventory financing model consisting of a bank and a risk-averse retailer with strategic default. This paper considers two scenarios, i.e. the capital-constrained retailer cares about its profit or firm value. In the first scenario, the bank acts as a Stackelberg leader determining its interest rate, and the retailer acts as a follower determining its pledged quantity. In the second one, the bank capital market is perfectly competitive. Lagrange multiplier method is adopted to solve the optimization.

The optimal strategies in inventory financing scheme in two scenarios are derived. Only when the initial stock is relatively high, the retailer pledges part of the initial stock. Retailer's risk aversion reduces its pledged quantity and performance. The strategic default reduces its profit. When it is relatively high, the bank refuses to offer the loan.

Analytical inventory and financing strategies are specified to help retailers and banks to better understand the interaction of finance and operations management and to better respond to multi-risk.

New results and managerial insights are derived by incorporating partially endogenous strategic default and risk aversion into inventory financing, which enriches the interfaces of operations management and finance.

Under the guidance of Professor Wang Zhuquan’s channel-based working capital management concept, this paper, using a sample of A-listed companies from 2007 to 2013, aims to explore the possibility of measuring vendor relationships from the supply chain (channel) perspective for the first time, making universal testing for working capital management based on vendor relationships. Through systematically answering the question of who is the biggest beneficiary of working capital management based on vendor relationships and to discuss whether suppliers are more willing to provide “timely help” to weak enterprises or to exert an “icing on the cake” effect on strong enterprises, this paper provides a systematic explanation of the causes and economic consequences of working capital management based on vendor relationships.

The authors constructed three models to test the hypotheses of this study. Model (1) explores the cause of working capital management based on vendor relationship from three angles: market position, industry competition degree and property right. Models (2) and (3) examine the economic consequences of working capital management based on vendor relationship from the two aspects of alleviating financing constraints and improving enterprises’ sustained growth capability.

Working capital management based on vendor relationships has a more significant “timely help” effect on weak companies, which was proved by the inclination of companies with lower market positions, higher industrial competition and private ownerships to adopt working capital management based on vendor relationships. From the perspective of economic consequences, while China’s listed companies benefit generally from working capital management based on vendor relationships, the weak enterprises are the biggest beneficiaries. Based on vendor relationships, the weak enterprises can relieve financing constraints and improve continuous growth capacity. It provides further evidence that suppliers could provide “timely help” to weak enterprises.

The results of this study find that the competition between supply chains replaces the competition among enterprises, and suppliers are more willing to provide “timely help” to weak enterprises rather than to exert an “icing on the cake” effect on strong enterprises. In addition, the working capital management based on vendor relationships facilitates the cooperation of enterprises and suppliers and improves the overall efficiency of the supply chain.

In estimating desired inventory holdings business organizations must use some estimate of their cost of funds. While conceptually the overall or weighted average cost of capital would seem to be the appropriate measure, survey of senior U.S. and Canadian financial executives at large firms revealed that most of the responding firms used their cost of borrowed funds. As is demonstrated in the paper, use of the cost of borrowed funds rather than the overall cost of funds can cause inventory positions to be excessive during certain periods and deficient during other periods.

While supply chain scholars concur on the need to integrate supply chain finance (SCF) processes to meet ever-changing customer demands, it is unclear how SCF influences business performance in the presence of perceived opportunistic behavior. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the moderating role of perceived partner opportunism in the supply chain.

Drawing on the dynamic capability theory (DCT), this study investigates how perceived supply chain partner opportunism moderates the mediating role of supply- and demand-oriented performances on the link between SCF and business performance, from the retail industry perspective. Data was collected from Australian retailing firms. In all, 293 completed surveys were received. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted.

The results of this study indicate that supply- and demand-oriented performances serially mediate the relationship between SCF and business performance. The study also found that the effect of SCF on performance was higher when perceived partner opportunism was lower.

To respond to changes in consumer preferences and demand effectively, supply chain and marketing managers need to understand the complex interaction between supply- and demand-oriented performances and the key role of SCF in developing such capabilities.

The current study theorizes and demonstrates the effects of supply- and demand-oriented performances that can facilitate the effects of SCF on business performance. Also, the study reveals the effect of each dimension of SCF (accounts payable, accounts receivable and inventory finance) on supply- and demand-oriented performances. Additionally, the study shows the key role of perceived partner opportunism in supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the interplay between a firm’s financial situation and its inventory ownership in a single-firm and a two-firm perspective.

The analysis uses different secondary data sources to quantify the effect of both financial constraints and cost of capital on inventory holdings of public US firms. The authors first adopt a single-firm perspective and analyze whether financial constraints and cost of capital do generally affect the amount of inventory held. Next, the authors adopt a two-firm perspective and analyze the inventory ownership in customer-supplier relationships.

Inventory levels are affected by financial constraints and cost of capital. Results indicate that higher costs of capital are weakly associated with lower inventories. However, contrary to the authors’ expectations, firms that are less financially constrained hold less inventories than firms that are more financially constrained. Finally, the authors find that customers hold the larger fraction of supply chain inventory in supplier-customer dyads.

The authors’ results indicate that financial considerations generally play a role in inventory management. However, inventory holdings seem to be influenced only slightly by financing costs and inventory holdings between supplier and customer seem to be less than optimal from a financial perspective. Considering those financial aspects can lead to relevant financial advantages.

In contrast to other recent research, the authors study how the financial situation of a firm affects its inventory levels (not vice versa) and also consider inventories from a two-firm perspective.

Although supply chain finance (SCF) aims to optimize capital flows in the supply chain process, its effectiveness in improving cost performance remains controversial. From the perspective of efficiency motives, this study aims to explore how the combinations of SCF solutions and traditional financing instruments lead to supply chain cost reduction.

A mixed-method approach is used in this study. First, using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the authors analyze 405 survey data across four industries in China and identify the configurations of financing instruments for supply chain cost reduction. Second, to better understand the reasons behind each configuration, the authors conduct the content analysis on the interview data composed of 24 Chinese companies.

The authors find that the effectiveness of SCF solutions for supply chain cost reduction is related to the focal company's use of traditional financing instruments. Moreover, compared with guaranteed financing, companies that use credit financing are more likely to adopt SCF solutions to achieve supply chain cost reduction. Finally, the effectiveness of SCF solutions in reducing supply chain costs varies greatly across industries.

The study’s findings provide insights for policymakers and SCF practitioners in the aspects of simplifying the SCF application.

This study contributes to the current literature by addressing the theory–practice gap related to SCF. The study also provides new understandings of factors related to supply chain cost reduction, as well as factors that influence SCF adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between firms' inventory accumulation and financial structure. It further investigates the impact of geographical locations on firms' inventory investment decision after controlling for firms' financial structure.

This paper uses a large panel of over 1,400 Chinese listed firms that issued.

Firms' financial structure, as reflected in the availability of internal and external capital, has significant impact on firms' inventory decisions. In addition, it is found that firms headquartered in major economic development areas (EDA) tend to have slower inventory growth than firms located in rural areas. Moreover, the results reveal that locating in major EDA facilitates firms' stockpiling of inventories through easy access to external capital.

This study not only contributes to the studies on the interactions between firms' location and their financing and investment policy, but also improves our understanding about emerging markets such as China.