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This paper aims to address the following problems: What are the firms’ optimal pricing and quality policies under three scenarios (no bundling, pure bundling and mixed bundling)? In what condition will one bundling strategy dominate the others? How does the degree of complementarity affect the firms’ decision?

Using the game theory, this study first establishes three models of bundling strategies: no bundling, pure bundling and mixed bundling and then obtains the optimal prices and quality decisions. This study uses numerical analysis to explore the relationships between the prices (demands and profits) and some key parameters and to obtain some valuable management complications.

Some interesting and valuable management implications are established: regardless of the degree of complementarity, adopting a pure bundling or mixed bundling strategy is better than separately selling an individual product; a high degree of complementarity leads to reduced profit in the no bundling and mixed bundling scenarios, whereas the condition in the pure bundling strategy is the opposite; and when the degree of complementarity is adequately large, choosing pure bundling strategy is more profitable.

On the one hand, this study does not calculate the profit sharing ratio, and hence, the equilibrium profit sharing ratio can be explored in future work. On the other hand, marketing efforts (e.g. advertising and promotion) can be included in the study.

This study derives the necessary conditions for the most effective bundling strategy that maximizes firm’s profits, and these conclusions can provide a decision reference to the bundling decisions of firms.

First, the optimal bundling strategies in a horizontal supply chain consisting of two firms is considered. Under the pure and mixed bundling strategies, the two firms sell the bundled product by building a cooperative program. Second, both the pricing policies and quality decisions of supply chain members under the different bundling strategies are studied.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a three-dimensional (3D) assembly model retrieval method based on assembling semantic information to address semantic mismatches, poor accuracy and low efficiency in existing 3D assembly model retrieval methods.

The paper proposes an assembly model retrieval method. First, assembly information retrieval is performed, and 3D models that conform to the design intention of the assembly are found by retrieving the code. On this basis, because there are conjugate subgraphs between attributed adjacency graphs (AAG) that have an assembly relationship, the assembly model geometric retrieval is translated into a problem of finding AAGs with a conjugate subgraph. Finally, the frequent subgraph mining method is used to retrieve AAGs with conjugate subgraphs.

The method improved the efficiency and accuracy of assembly model retrieval.

The examples illustrate the specific retrieval process and verify the feasibility and reasonability of the assembly model retrieval method in practical applications.

The assembly model retrieval method in the paper is an original method. Compared with other methods, good results were obtained.

This study provides a reflective overview on the role of traditional and emergent digitalization and information technologies for leveraging environmental supply chain sustainability – while reflecting on potential trade-offs and conflicts of digitalization and greening.

The authors use relevant literature and literature from Industrial Management and Data Systems (IMDS) research published in this journal over the past 50 years. They also use their knowledge and over 30 years of research experience in the field to provide professional scholarly reflections and perspective.

The authors provide a focused and succinct evaluation for research directions. A pressures, practices and performance framework sets the stage for pertinent research questions and theoretical needs to investigate the nexus of digitalization and green supply chain management. The authors provide two frameworks with exemplary practices and research for traditional and emergent digitalization and information technology. Their reflection concludes with a summary and steps forward.

The authors show how research and practice can be used to affect supply chain greening with digitalization and information technology. They observe that care should be taken given that these technologies can paradoxically simultaneously offer solutions to environmental degradation and potentially be a source of environmental degradation across the supply chain.

This work provides a summary and unique perspective that links traditional and emergent digitalization technology to green and environmental sustainability work. The area has not seen a clear summary and path forward and shows how IMDS literature has contributed to the field for decades.

Market uncertainties require organizations to consistently revisit their product portfolio. Theoretically the link between corporate strategy, supply chain and operations for Product Deletion (PD) decisions is lacking. The purpose of this study is to develop a decision support tool that enables managers to evaluate PD decisions across business, supply chain strategies and customer considerations; rationalizing product portfolio variety while realizing long-term organizational competitiveness.

This study applies Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to formalize PD decision-making across multiple functional strategy perspectives. Manufacturing, supply chain, finance and marketing functions are included along with incorporating multiple stakeholder voices from multiple organizational levels—including top-management team members, cross-functional managers and customers. A case study application is conducted using an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) perspective.

The interrelationships between business, supply chain strategies and customer requirements are identified, along with tensions and tradeoffs using a series of “houses” or relationship matrices. The methodology provides managers with a decision support tool that can be flexible and applicable to aid sound PD decision-making incorporating multiple stakeholders.

Product decisions at the decline stage—for example product retirement or deletion—are neglected both in research and in practice. Having a formalized systematic process can make PD outcomes more objective. The proposed QFD approach is one of the early PD decision support tools—products can be deleted for strategic, operational and customer-related reasons, and the hierarchical interrelationships among various reasons need to be carefully managed to ensure sound product portfolio rationalization.

The purpose of this study is to determine if blockchain-supported carbon offset information provision and shipping options with different cost and environmental footprint implications impact consumer perceptions toward retailers and logistics service providers. Blockchain and carbon neutrality, each can be expensive to adopt and complex to manage, thus getting the “truth” on decarbonization may require additional costs for consumers.

Experimental modeling is used to address these critical and emergent issues that influence practices across a set of supply chain actors. Three hypotheses relating to the relationship between blockchain-supported carbon offset information and consumer perceptions and intentions associated with the product and supply chain actors are investigated.

The results show that consumer confidence increases when supply chain carbon offset information has greater reliability, transparency and traceability as supported by blockchain technology. The authors also find that consumers who are provided visibility into various shipping options and the product's journey carbon emissions and offset – from a blockchain-supported system – they are more willing to pay a premium for both the product and shipping options. Blockchain-supported decarbonization information disclosure in the supply chain can lead to organizational legitimacy and financial gains in return.

Understanding consumer action and sustainable consumption is critical for organizations seeking carbon neutrality. Currently, the literature on this understanding from a consumer information provision is not well understood, especially with respect to blockchain-supported information transparency, visibility and reliability. Much of the blockchain literature focuses on the upstream. This study focuses more on consumer-level and downstream supply chain blockchain implications for organizations. The study provides a practical roadmap for considering levels of blockchain information activity and consumer interaction.

Shareholder heterogeneity reflects the interactive relationship between shareholder groups of different industries and ownership types. This paper aims to discuss the impact of shareholder heterogeneity on ambidextrous corporate innovation.

Combining questionnaire and database data, this study empirically analyzes the internal mechanisms of the impact of shareholder heterogeneity on ambidextrous corporate innovation.

The authors find that shareholder heterogeneity can promote ambidextrous corporate innovation and that board’s decision-making processes play an intermediary role. Specifically, shareholder industry-type heterogeneity promotes ambidextrous corporate innovation by improving procedural rationality in board’s decision-making process, and shareholder ownership-type heterogeneity promotes ambidextrous corporate innovation by improving political behavior in board’s decision-making process. The analysis of the impact degree shows that shareholder industry-type heterogeneity has a greater impact on exploitation innovation, while shareholder ownership-type heterogeneity has a greater impact on exploratory innovation. In addition, the research also shows that shareholder groups dominated by industry-type heterogeneity have an impact on corporate innovation by shaping an engaged board with higher procedural rationality and lower political behavior. Shareholder groups dominated by ownership-type heterogeneity have an impact on corporate innovation by shaping a contested board with higher political behavior and lower procedural rationality.

This study not only enriches the research on shareholder heterogeneity and corporate innovation in the context of transformation but also provides an analytical framework for research on board’s decision-making process.

Product portfolio management is a strategic concern. Product portfolio management includes decisions associated with adding new products, maintaining existing products and deleting or phasing out problematic products. This paper first introduces a framework to identify risks of product deletion along supply chain activities. It utilizes failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to identify, analyse and evaluate product deletion risks on supply chains and proposes managerial implications for risk management in dynamic business scenarios. It is meant to build upon and address a gap in the product deletion and supply chain linkage literature.

FMEA is utilized in this study to structure and manage potential risks in product deletion decision-making on supply chains. FMEA is based on an analysis of severity, occurrence and detectability of failure modes. FMEA provides methods to help identify managerial preventive solutions to avoid and mitigate risk consequences of such decisions.

Ten top product deletion risks are identified in this study; discussions of their negative impact on supply chain performance, and possible managerial recommendations are followed for risk control, monitor and elimination.

Findings help managers to predict, avoid and mitigate risk consequences of product deletion decisions; especially those related to the supply chain. A framework to structure various risks of product deletion in the supply chain can be useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This study advances product portfolio management through enhanced understanding of product deletion decision-making in organizations; and especially contributes to a broader investigation of such decisions in supply chain management. It also structures the factors that play a role in identifying risks.

With the analysis of the causes of corruption, this study aims to investigate specific anti-corruption measures that can be implemented to reform the political system and the social climate of China.

This study examines 97 severe corruption cases of high-ranking officials in China, which occurred between 2012 and 2015. As this insinuates that both institutional and social corruption are major problems in China, the analysis delves into multiple facts of corruption, including different types, four primary underlying causes, and suggestions regarding the implementation of three significant governmental shifts that focus on investigation, prevention tactics and legal regulations.

China’s corruption is not only individual-based but also it has developed into institutional corruption and social corruption. Besides human nature and instinct, the causes of corruption can be organised into four categories, namely, social customs, social transitions, institutional designs and institutional operations. For the removed high-ranking officials, the formation of interest chains was an important underlying cause behind their corruption.

This study makes a significant contribution to the literature because this study provides a well-rounded approach to a complex issue by highlighting the significance of democracy and the rule of law as ways to regulate human behaviour to combat future corruption.

Lean manufacturing is one of the leading paradigms for fast and proficient manufacturing but its proper implementation is a foremost task due to certain barriers affecting lean and can be handled when utilized with RFID technology. With this aspect in view, the purpose of this paper is to enlighten and present a thorough literature study that can show how RFID-based lean manufacturing is helpful for handling barriers affecting lean manufacturing in light of previous literature available.

In order to achieve this purpose a systematic literature review is conducted to justify the impacts of RFID technology for handling barriers. The aim of this systematic literature review is to initially find the barriers affecting lean implementation and then to explain the properties of RFID-based lean manufacturing which are highly feasible to handle detected barriers.

An interrelation is generated in this study which provides a clear indication that the properties of RFID carry significant effects to handle detected barriers in the operational, managerial and financial regime of manufacturing companies. The detected barriers that affect lean implementation are company’s cultures, top management commitment, poor employee administration, lack of finances, unbalanced inventory control, unstable customer handling and longer lead times. The properties of RFID-based lean manufacturing like operational visibility, inventory control, production control, minimized lead times and the real-time data information (to facilitate top management and employees on shop floor) are extremely helpful to control these barriers.

The originality of this study is the provision of clarity provided to both academicians and practitioners by citing and utilizing previous research studies which undoubtedly indicates positive impacts of RFID on lean implementation.