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Information sharing is one of essential collaboration methods for building effective system-level disruption responses and communication for supply chain resilience. However, supply chain members are often reluctant to share the members' business information for fear of losing competitiveness. To facilitate the cooperation among these members, the supply chain members' should be made aware of the value of information. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to quantify the benefit of information sharing and evaluate its magnitude under various factors.

In this paper, information sharing is measured in a two-stage supply chain containing a manufacturer and a retailer. A demand function is constructed as a linear combination of a first-order autoregressive [AR(1)] process, the retail and reference prices. The values of information sharing are quantified for four scenarios: (1) no information sharing, (2) full information sharing, (3) limited information sharing and (4) partial information sharing. Based on the four scenarios, the conditions for valuable information sharing are determined. In addition, the impact of several demand parameters on the usefulness of information sharing is analyzed.

When the demand function is a pure AR(1) process (i.e. there is no impact from the retail and reference prices), information sharing is always valuable regardless of the autoregressive coefficient. Under the influence of the retail price and consumer behavior via the reference price, information sharing is not always beneficial. The boundaries for useful information sharing are analytically constructed. In addition to full information sharing, this study also quantifies the value of information under a partial sharing scheme. The results indicate that the information is more valuable as long as the information is inducible.

This study highlights several specific conditions for a beneficial information sharing agreement in consideration of consumer behaviors. These conditions enable supply chain members to design a sustainable partnership.

In general, demand for functional products is dependent on a range of promotions offered in various retail outlets. To improve promotional sales many retailers collaborate with manufacturers for planning, forecasting and replenishment. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesize that collaborative forecasting will improve the forecast accuracy if all the partners can relate their demand forecast with underlying demand factors.

In this paper, the author uses a case study approach to study various demand factors of soft drink products of the UK based company which offers frequent promotions in retail outlets. The paper represents the case study findings in a conceptual framework called Reference Demand Model (RDM). Further, the case study findings are validated empirically by means of multiple linear regression analysis using actual sales data of the case company.

Surprisingly, some of the demand factors specified as very important by the case company are not found to be highly significant for actual sales. The paper uses the identified demand factors to suggest levels of collaboration.

Understanding the importance of product specific demand factors through regression models and incorporating the same in managerial decision making will aid managers to identify the necessary information to make accurate demand forecasts.

This approach unveils the presence of three levels of collaboration namely preparatory, progressive and futuristic levels among supply chain partners based on the information exchange. The proposed method will aid decision making on information sharing and collaborative planning among manufacturer and retailers for future promotional sales.

The purpose of this paper is to create an understanding on the magnitude and dimension of supply chain collaboration (SCC) reported in the literature. The detailed review discusses various indicators that help companies to implement collaboration successfully and create awareness on the barriers faced while initiating collaboration in supply chain (SC).

The meta-analysis includes full-text papers retrieved from the Web of Science database using verified keywords. The articles are reviewed for identifying the performance indicators used to evaluate the SC. The systematic review is performed for the collaborative techniques in the following categories: information sharing (IS); vendor managed inventory; and collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment. The papers are then comprehensively analyzed for the approaches, and the key findings are mentioned along with the future scope.

The review suggests that the SC relationship, trust, quality of IS and technological involvement are to be focused for successful implementation of the collaborative technique. Proper collaboration helps SC partners to enhance their technique of operations in an effective manner which results in high business turnovers.

The review paper provides a quantitative study of SCC. A bird’s eye view of the scopes and benefits of using SCC for the academic scholars and industrial personnel are the primary concern discussed.

This work examines the joint pricing and ordering (JPO) decisions for a loss-averse retailer with quantity-oriented reference point (RP) effect under demand uncertainty.

The demand is assumed to be uncertain with the mean and variance as the only known information. The prospect theory is used to model the retailer's expected utility. An expected utility maximization model in the distribution-free approach (DFA) is then developed. Using duality theory, the expected utility under the worst-case distribution is transformed into tractable piece-wise functions. To examine the effectiveness of the DFA in coping with the demand uncertainty, a stochastic programming model is developed and its solutions are used as benchmarks.

The proposed model and solution approach can effectively hedge against the demand uncertainty. The JPO decisions are significantly influenced by the LA coefficient and the reference level. The LA has a stronger influence than the reference level does on the expected utility. An excessive LA is detrimental while an appropriate reference level is beneficial to the retailer.

The results of this work are applicable to loss-averse retailers with the quantity-oriented RP when making JPO decisions with difficulty in predicting the demands.

The demand is assumed to be uncertain in this work, but a certain demand distribution is usually assumed in the existing literature. The DFA is used to study JPO decisions for the loss-averse retailer with quantity-oriented RP effect under the uncertain demand.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

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.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The paper attempts to discuss the impact of reference price effect on pricing decisions.

With the growth of the Internet and e-commerce, more and more customers purchase products in through online channels and choose products by comparing different prices and services, and the reference price effect has an impact on pricing decisions. To investigate the impact of consumers' reference price effect on the dual-channel supply chain, the authors establish a basic model consisting of a single dominant manufacturer and a single downstream retailer, and analyze the optional decisions under different situations and discuss the influence of reference price effect. Finally, a number case verifies the validity and rationality of the proposed model.

The results show that (1) the reference price effect has varying effects on the price, channel demand and income of manufacturers and retailers in the channel depending on the role of customers' channel preferences. (2) The manufacturer's online channel demand and profits always increase with the reference pricing effect, whereas the retailer's offline demand and profits always decline. (3) When the proportion of consumers preferring offline is higher, the manufacturer's network price and wholesale price increase with the reference price effect, while the retailer's retail price decreases with the reference price effect; when the proportion of consumers preferring offline is lower, the opposite is true, and the centralized decision results are consistent with the decentralized decision results.

This paper can clarify the impact of consumer reference price effects on the operation of dual-channel supply chains, and help inform pricing decisions of manufacturers and retailers in dual-channel supply chains.

The proposed approach can well analyze the impact of consumer reference price effect and give channel their optional decisions.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.