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Recent studies have indicated that digital transformation can benefit an organization’s strategic renewal. However, there is little knowledge on how business executives engage in digital transformation for this purpose, especially in the service sectors of emerging markets. Therefore, this study aims to examine how business managers accomplish strategic renewal through digital transformation in emerging markets.

The authors conducted a longitudinal single case study of a leading business firm in China’s real estate industry, China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. (COLI). Results of the analysis of semistructured interviews and rich secondary data allowed us to better understand how business managers react to changing customer demands by building and implementing divergent digital tools to fulfill strategic renewal.

The results showed that business executives of COLI developed the Whole Life Cycle Management System, to achieve strategic renewal. The system benefits resource allocation and potential adjustments to strategic goals. This study also helps update the organizational structure of the marketing and consumer services departments, helping better satisfy consumers’ demands and waste fewer resources. Thus, COLI accomplished structural, contextual and leadership-based ambidexterity.

This study provides a fresh understanding of the link between digitalization and strategic renewal by providing a fine-grained analysis of leading service providers in emerging markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the role of digital transformation in strategic renewal from an ambidexterity perspective.

With the rapid growth of the economy, people have increasingly higher living standards, and although people simply pursued material wealth in the past, they now pay more attention to material quality and safety and environmental protection. This paper discusses the lack of motivation for investing in fresh-keeping technology for agricultural products by individual members of an agricultural supply chain composed of a supplier and a retailer by means of mathematical models and data simulations and discuss the optimal price-invest strategies under different sales models.

First, based on the model of no investment by both sides (NN), this paper considers three models: supplier only (MN), retailer only (NR) and cooperative investment (MR). Then, the authors analyze the influence of consumer price sensitivity and freshness sensitivity on the investment motivation of agricultural products under four models. Subsequently, the paper makes a sensitivity analysis of the optimal strategies under several models, and makes a game analysis of the suppliers and retailers of agricultural products. Finally, we conduct an empirical analysis through specific values.

The results show that (a) when the two sides cooperate, the amount of investment is largest, the freshness of the agricultural products is highest, and the sales volume is greatest; however, when both sides do not invest, the freshness of agricultural products and sales volume are lowest. (b) The price and freshness sensitivity of the consumer have an impact on investment decisions. Greater freshness sensitivity corresponds to a higher investment, higher agricultural product price, greater sales volume, and greater supply chain member income and overall income; however, greater price sensitivity corresponds to a lower investment, lower agricultural product price, lower sales volume, fewer supply chain members and lower overall income. (c) The investment game between the supplier and retailer is not only related to the sensitivity to price and freshness but also to the coordination coefficients of interest. At the same time, the market position of agricultural products should be considered when making decisions. The market share of agricultural products will affect the final game equilibrium and then affect the final benefit of the supply chain and individual members.

These results provide managerial insights for enterprises preparing to invest in agricultural products preservation technology.

At present, the main problem is that member enterprises of agricultural supply chains operate based on their own benefits and are resistant to investing alone to improve the freshness of agricultural products. Instead, they would prefer that other members invest so that they may reap the benefits at no cost. Therefore, the enterprises in each node of the agricultural product supply chain are not motivated enough to invest, and competition and game states are observed among them, and such behavior is definitely not conducive to improving the freshness of agricultural products. However, the current research on agricultural products is more about price, quality and greenness, etc., and there are few studies on agricultural investment. Through the establishment of the model, this paper is expected to provide theoretical suggestions for the supply chain enterprises that plan to invest in agricultural products preservation technology.

Under the carbon regulation mechanism, managing operational strategies is a challenging task. Green innovation is introduced into a hybrid system of manufacturing and remanufacturing to handle the carbon emission constraints in a dynamic market environment. This paper aims to investigate the joint dynamic green innovation policy and pricing strategies in a hybrid manufacturing and remanufacturing system.

This paper first considers a monopolistic manufacturer who offers brand-new products and remanufactured items at the same price to consumers. Subsequently, the authors extend their analyses to distinct pricing strategies for both newly manufactured products and refurnished ones in such a hybrid system. Two different cases are considered: a loose carbon emission constraint and a binding carbon emission constraint. By solving the dynamic optimization problem, the differential game and Pontryagin’s maximum principle are used to obtain the joint green innovation and pricing strategies.

The retail price first increases then declines over a single period. The green innovation diminishes in the same pricing decision model, while it first increases then declines in a distinct pricing decision model over a single planning horizon. The green innovation investment as well as the retail price are discouraged by an emission cap and recycling fraction. The distinct retail price fluctuates violently, and they are, in descending order of the highest peak price as follows: the newly manufactured product, the same pricing product and the repaired product. Carbon emission caps that are either too high or too low decrease the revenue of the manufacturer. A small emission constraint margin benefits the manufacturer. The recycling policy, as well as other parameters, affects whether the hybrid system attains the carbon emission constraint or not, which suggests that the recycling policy is complementary to the carbon emission constraint mechanism in the hybrid system.

These results offer managerial implications to the hybrid system in terms of green innovation, pricing strategies and recycling policy.

This paper is among the first papers to research the joint dynamic green innovation policy and pricing strategies with/without a carbon emission constraint in a hybrid manufacturing and remanufacturing system with a differential game. Moreover, this paper presents a potential way of investigating other common resource constraints by a differential game in a manufacturing/remanufacturing system or closed loop supply chain.

As one of the omnichannel sales models, “buy online and pick up in store” (BOPS) not only is used in the commercial field but also has gradually attracted many scholars’ interests. However, although there are numerous research ideas, most of the current work is still limited to theoretical and empirical research, and few scholars study BOPS through models. This paper aims to discuss the best market conditions and opportunities for the implementation of BOPS against the backdrop of omnichannel by means of mathematical models and data simulations and discuss the optimal price–service strategies under different sales models.

First, from the perspective of different consumer shopping types, this paper separately divides consumers into different groups in traditional “dual channel” and BOPS models. Then, the authors analyze the impact of company market size, consumer service sensitivity and the scale of BOPS on companies’ strategies and the profit of the supply chain. Subsequently, they conduct an empirical analysis through specific values. Finally, the authors further expand the model on the basis of the original research, and discuss the retailer’s fairness concerns and unit compensation strategy to ensure that the research content is more rigorous.

It is observed that whether companies adopt BOPS depends on consumers’ service sensitivity degree and the scale of BOPS consumers and online retailers: when the sensitivity and the proportion of online consumers are high or the number of BOPS consumers is large, it is more advantageous for companies to implement BOPS. Moreover, companies should not only consider the market scale and production cost but also have a precise orientation of consumers’ experience sensitivity and willingness to engage in extra consumption when making price and service strategies. At the same time, the compensation strategy of companies and the peer-regarding fairness concern behavior of offline retailers will affect the optimal price and service strategy in the BOPS model.

These results provide managerial insights for companies preparing to implement BOPS and promote the development of relevant theories in the channel field.

At present, most of the research on BOPS is based on empirical reviews. However, this paper analyzes the applicability and feasibility of implementing BOPS by using specific models, and it will provide some reference for companies preparing to implement BOPS. In addition, this paper also discusses the unit compensation strategy and peer-regarding fairness concern behavior in the BOPS model, which have not been studied by relevant scholars.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has now been paid notable attention by a large number of firms. The aim of this paper is to investigate a better way to implement CSR in a socially responsible supply chain with different channel leaderships.

Started from measuring CSR by purely taking consumer surplus into account, a stylized centralized channel and two different decentralized channels are first developed and examined for equilibria in the socially responsible chain. Furthermore, this paper extends to a socially irresponsible supply chain and a broader practice of CSR by simultaneously incorporating environmental externality and consumer surplus into CSR.

With the analytical studies, several interesting and important results and managerial insights are clearly revealed. For example, but not limited to, it is found that: (1) Compared with the leader, the follower can effectively implement CSR for a better performance in both pure and socially responsible profits in the decentralized channel; (2) undertaking socially responsible concerns does not always mean reducing the economic profit and conversely being socially irresponsible does not always induce an increase in economic profit for the socially responsible member(s); (3) CSR concern level plays a key role in both the pure and socially responsible profit. An increase in CSR concern level clearly increases the socially responsible profit and poses an ambiguous impact on pure profit depending on different channel leaderships: it decreases the centralized channel in pure profit but increases the pure profit with the decentralized channel under certain conditions; and (4) interestingly, the authors find that decentralization can outperform centralization regarding on both pure and socially responsible channel profits by properly implementing CSR concern levels.

The results derived in this paper provide novel managerial implications to the socially responsible members in terms of pricing decisions, order quantity and CSR practice. In addition, this paper assists the socially responsible supply chain in determining the optimal channel leadership to undertake CSR. That is, decentralization may achieve a better performance than integration under certain market conditions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to explore the interactive of the CSR practice and channel leadership in a socially responsible supply chain.

Industry practice has shown that technology licensing has an important effect on the R&D cooperation between firms. Different licensing methods will significantly impact a supply chain member's cooperative and price R&D decisions. However, there is scant literature investigating the decision on technology licensing and its impact on a supply chain member's price and cooperative R&D decisions. To address this gap, the authors investigate the R&D cooperation and the technology licensing in a supply chain formed of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), a contract manufacturer (CM), and a third-party manufacturer which will compete with the OEM when the technology licensing occurs.

The authors investigate two licensing patterns, royalty licensing, fixed fee licensing together with the no licensing, within the R&D cooperative supply chain by developing two three-stage and a two-stage Stackelberg models.

Compare to the no licensing strategy, technology licensing always benefits to the OEM and the society especially when the technology efficiency and the brand power of the third-party manufacturer are more significant; the royalty licensing benefits to the OEM more when the technology efficiency and the brand power of the third-party manufacturer are higher; the fixed fee licensing benefits to the OEM more when the technology efficiency and the brand power of the third-party manufacturer are lower.

The royalty licensing is more effective for mitigating price competition intensity and helping firms to maintain higher sales margins; the fixed fee licensing induces firms' lower sales margins but increases the firms' sales quantities; in most cases, the fixed fee licensing is optimal from the perspectives of consumer and society, however, the CM's investment intention to the R&D technology with the fixed fee licensing is lower.

So far, different licensing models under the R&D cooperation have not been investigated, and the authors propose two three-stage Stackelberg models with considering the competition caused by technology licensing under the R&D cooperation to deal with the cooperative R&D and technology licensing issues.

Members in a supply chain account for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in different ways. This paper considers a socially responsible supply chain in which the manufacturer innovates in a sustainable product while the retailer exhibits CSR concerns. This paper aims to investigate how socially responsible behavior, namely, sustainable innovations or CSR concerns, affects the pure profit, environmental impact and social welfare, in such a socially responsible supply chain.

This paper first constructs an integrated case as a benchmark and then develops a Manufacturer-Stackelberg game in a decentralized scenario. The pure profit, environmental impact and social welfare are confirmed and analyzed in centralized and decentralized cases. Moreover, two unique coordinating contracts, i.e. wholesale price discount contract and revenue-sharing contract, are used in this socially responsible supply chain.

Analytical analysis shows that, under certain conditions, the optimal CSR strategies hold for maximizing pure channel profit, minimizing environmental impact and maximizing social welfare. Whether the performance in a centralized case outnumbers that in a decentralized case depends on the CSR concerns level and environment-friendly degree of the product. In addition, it is found that a wholesale price discount contract is better for the retailer whereas a revenue-sharing contract is better for the manufacturer in pure profit to improve coordinating efficiency.

These results can offer managerial implications to the socially responsible supply chain in terms of pricing decisions, CSR strategies and sustainability innovations. Specifically, under certain conditions, placing more CSR concerns level increases pure channel profit and the social welfare. A balance between the pure profit and the social welfare is hereby achieved for the two socially responsible individuals by designing a proper contract.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first studies so far to combine the CSR concerns strategy and sustainability innovation into a socially responsible supply chain.

This paper examines how the level of low-carbon awareness (LCA) affects the remanufacturing strategy in a supply chain with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and an independent remanufacturer (IR) competing with each other.

Game theory and operations optimization.

The studies analytically characterize the threshold levels of the LCA in response to which the OEM and the IR will change their remanufacturing strategies from no remanufacturing to partial remanufacturing and then to full remanufacturing. In addition, the studies reveal that as compared with the OEM, the IR has more flexibility in terms of the market entry to remanufacturing with the level of LCA increasing. With the extended studies, it is exhibited that the above findings are robust to a good extent.

It can provide decision support for remanufacturing enterprises.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the financing channels and carbon emission abatement preferences of supply chain members, and further examine the optimal contract design of the retailer.

This paper develops a low-carbon supply chain composed of one retailer and one manufacturer, in which the retailer provides trade credit to the manufacturer. Considering the cap-and-trade regulation, the manufacturer with uncertain yield makes decision on whether to invest in emission abatement. There are bank loan and trade credit to finance production for the manufacturer and green credit to finance emission abatement investment. Meanwhile, the retailer may provide the manufacturer with three kinds of contracts to improve emission abatement efficiency, namely, revenue sharing, cost sharing or both sharing.

The results show that the retailer prefers to offer financing service at lower interest rate, but trade (and green) credit financing is always optimal for manufacturer and supply chain. The investment in emission abatement is value-added to all players. The sharing contracts offered by the retailer at lower sharing ratios can realize Pareto improvement of the system regardless of the financing scheme. However, comparing with the revenue or cost sharing contract, the existence of optimal sharing ratios makes the both sharing contract more favorable to the retailer.

The findings provide guidance for the emission-dependent manufacturer in financing and emission abatement decisions, as well as recommendations for the retailer to offer loan service and sharing contract.

This paper integrates green credit into bank loan or trade credit to analyze the financing decision of the manufacturer with uncertain yield and further considers the influence of three kinds of sharing contracts introduced by the retailer on improving operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the impact and transmission mechanism of different international capital flows on domestic employment and wages in China within a systematic framework; also to reveal whether the empirical results can confirm the basic model inferences.

Using dynamic economic model and empirical experiment, this study designs and conducts the analysis within a systematic framework. The authors acquire the needed and credible empirical data.

The international capital inflows will increase the average wage level, and the international capital outflows will significantly reduce the level of domestic wages. The unofficially recorded capital flows would appear negatively related to the domestic wages. Due to the complexities of relevant elements, the impact of different international capital flows on domestic employment is of insignificance. It is noteworthy that the impact of international capital flows on the average wage changes of different provinces will tend to converge to a certain extent.

The results have reflected that the capital flows between the different provinces have no obvious frictions and barriers.

The paper explores in depth the impact and transmission mechanism of different international capital flows on domestic employment and wages within a systematic framework. The empirical analysis related to the China different provinces is an exploratory experiment.