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Annals of Operations Research (02545330)349(2)pp. 575-610
In order to attain competitive advantage, it is of high importance for firms to move towards sustainability. In practice, an efficient sustainable closed-loop supply chain (SCLSC) can reduce the negative effects of hazardous wastes and consequently improve the environmental dimension of sustainability. Besides the environmental dimension, the social aspect of sustainability can be achieved through initiating corporate social responsibility and enhancing social welfare of customers. Different from the existing literature, this paper proposes an analytical coordination model to not only cover all three dimensions of sustainability in a SCLSC but also to align different decisions made in competitive forward and reverse logistics. The proposed SCLSC is modeled under decentralized, centralized, and coordinated decision-making structures considering different game behaviors in the forward and reverse links. The results reveal that the proposed two-way two-part tariff (TWTPT) contract is of high benefit to the sustainable CLSC as it is able to simultaneously enhance the environmental, economic, and social performances. To be more precise, the proposed model improves the collection rate, consumer surplus, social welfare, and profits of all CLSC members. In addition, our findings demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed TWTPT contract in motivating the agents of both competitive forward and reverse chains to participate in the coordination scheme. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019.
Annals of Operations Research (02545330)336(3)pp. 1637-1660
To achieve a competitive advantage, corporations are growingly adopting strategies to effectively promote their market demand. Trade credit payment and pricing strategies provided by corporates can efficiently influence customers’ purchasing behavior. Although granting a trade credit strategy can increase corporations’ market share, such a strategy is a risk-based financing program for corporations. Therefore, corporates should choose whether to use trade credit financing in their long-term. This paper proposes an analytical model to investigate the evolutionary behaviors of retailers regarding pricing and trade credit strategies in the long term. In the study under investigation, retailers can use two financing strategies: risk-based trade credit and non-trade credit (i.e., pricing). This study provides both numerical and analytical findings. Our findings demonstrate that the risk-based trade credit strategy is the stationary financing solution for retailers in the long term. The result indicates that when customers are financially constrained, providing a trade credit scheme to customers is a successful marketing policy in both short-term and long-term frameworks. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Johari, M.,
Zirakpourdehkordi, R.,
Choi, T. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (00189391)71pp. 11375-11389
The highly pollution-intensive fashion industry requires manufacturers to do substantial sustainable practices over time. Concurrently, customers' environmental awareness challenges manufacturers to balance sustainability efforts with profitability and meet customers' evolving inclinations. Prior literature has primarily considered customers' preferences for ecofriendly fashion without examining the feedback between time-varying customers' valuation and manufacturers' sustainability. The recognized challenges and research deficiencies motivate us to incorporate feedback mechanisms in sustainable fashion manufacturing management. Moreover, in this article, we explore how consumerism influences manufacturers' sustainable fashion over time and simultaneously analyze sustainability effects on customers' valuation of fashion products. The innovative framework introduced in this study for tackling sustainable operations uses a dynamic game theory modeling to explore the complex interactions and feedback loops between customers' valuation trends and fashion manufacturers' evolving sustainability efforts over time. The contributions of our study to sustainable fashion business studies are as follows: analytically modeling the dynamic interplay between customers' valuation and sustainability as two critical states of the fashion system, incorporating separate decision variables for product-focused and process-focused sustainability; analyzing how consumerism and demand patterns impact sustainability and customer perceptions; and determining optimal time-varying allocation between product versus process sustainability investments to maximize profitability under shifting preferences. We view sustainability both as a continuous process and a measurable outcome. Findings suggest that investing in sustainability benefits fashion brands when customers change styles slowly and companies focus on durable products. Moreover, this study generates managerial insights on the implications of time-varying sustainability for fashion industry stakeholders, decision makers, and researchers. © 1988-2012 IEEE.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Johari, M.,
Nematollahi, M.,
Pazari, P. Annals of Operations Research (02545330)324(1-2)pp. 215-248
In reverse supply chain (RSC) systems, disruptions in the collection process of used items may negatively influence the efficiency of RSC participators. Inspired by a real case study, this paper contributes to the RSC systems coordination literature by analyzing the effect of collection disruptions on the efficiency of an RSC system with dual collection channels using a coordination contract approach. Moreover, this study explores the effect of collection competition between two collection channels (collector channel and remanufacturer channel) on the acquisition prices offered to consumers as incentive schemes for returning the used items. This study determines the equilibrium solutions for selling prices of remanufactured products, acquisition prices, and transfer price under decentralization, centralization, and coordination settings. Additionally, this study incorporates the impact of collection disruptions into the remanufacturer’s and collector’s problem considering four scenarios. Furthermore, this study proposes a disruption-based two-part tariff contract to accomplish channel coordination in the RSC system with dual-collection channel under collection disruptions. Our finding reveals that the suggested coordinated scheme efficiently coordinates the disrupted RSC with dual collection channels even when under high possibility of collection disruptions. Moreover, our coordination plan is of environmental and economic benefits, as it can boost the return quantities and can increase RSC participators’ profits. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Choi, T.,
Johari, M.,
Nouri-harzvili, M. European Journal of Operational Research (03772217)301(2)pp. 561-575
In supply chain (SC) systems, channel coordination can be achieved by incentive alignment contracts. The contracting mechanisms reported in the literature are usually “short-term-based” and the respective decisions are assumed to be static. However, real world supply chains (SCs) operate in the long term and decisions may evolve when time passes. As a result, this paper analytically explores the instability of the short-term coordination strategies and examines the evolutionary behaviors of SC members towards SC coordination. Moreover, it incorporates the effects of SC members’ evolutionary strategy adoption into profit surplus distribution among them. To be specific, an evolutionary game theory-based model, namely the “profit surplus distribution (PSD) mechanism for supply chain coordination”, is proposed to investigate how long-term behaviors of SC members will affect the coordination decisions (i.e., choosing to collaborate) and their share of coordination profit surplus. Based on a real case in consumer electronics, we analytically investigate a two-level SC consisting of a retailer investing in sales-effort and a population of manufacturers investing in innovation effort. Using the evolutionary game theory, we examine the relationship between the evolutionary strategies of SC members towards channel coordination and the profit surplus distribution among them. The results reveal that the coordination strategy is preferred by a great percentage of manufacturers in the long term and their share of coordination profit surplus plays a critical role in affecting their evolutionary preference (and vice versa). © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
Computers and Industrial Engineering (03608352)163
This study is conducted based on real issues observed in online retailing industry where an electronic retailer competes with a traditional retailer. To gain a competitive advantage, in addition to pricing strategy, the electronic retailer provides a warranty replacement service to customers, and the traditional retailer offers sales service. This paper develops a competitive demand function where customers’ sensitivities depend on pricing and different services provided by sales channels using analytical coordination contracts. Furthermore, we analyze pricing, warranty replacement, and sales service strategies in decentralized, semi-centralized, centralized, semi-coordinated, and coordinated scenarios. The proposed models are also investigated in both endogenous and exogenous wholesale price cases. This study gives insights into the way managers of the supply chain (SC) choose sales channels. The results reveal that the proposed hybrid revenue-tariff contract benefits both chain members and customers by suggesting a longer warranty period and more sales service to customers. The finding also reveals that the proposed hybrid revenue-tariff contract achieves a win–win situation for all participators. Comparing endogenous and exogenous wholesale price cases indicates that the endogenous wholesale price is more beneficial for both customers and sales channels compared to the exogenous wholesale price case. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd
European Journal of Operational Research (03772217)297(2)pp. 600-614
This study develops an analytical model based on the evolutionary game theory to analytically investigate the pricing and credit time strategies of a population of pharma-distributors towards demand promotion in the long term. This study determines the evolutionary stable strategy for the pharma-distributors’ population, and finds which marketing strategy of the pharma-distributors will ultimately be adopted by the majority of them. We investigate a supply chain (SC), including one pharma-manufacturer and a population of pharma-distributors where the pharma-distributors can either offer a credit time scheme or adopt a pricing strategy for customers’ convenience, using an evolutionary game theory approach. The uncertainty of customer default risk is incorporated into the pharma-distributors’ and pharma-manufacturer's payoffs. Both numerical and parametric sensitivity analyses are provided to give insights into the way SC managers use towards demand promotion. The results reveal that the credit time option considering the uncertain default risk is the evolutionary stable strategy for the pharma-distributors in the long term. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that under intense competition on the pricing strategy, the credit time scheme will be preferred by the majority of the population of pharma-distributors. However, under intense competition on the credit time scheme, the pricing policy will be employed by the majority of the pharma-distributors. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Johari, M.,
Zirakpourdehkordi, R. International Journal of Production Research (00207543)59(17)pp. 5108-5129
With the increase of global warming, grain producers should consider emission reduction in their production activities to move towards sustainable development. Besides the challenges of environmental sustainability, grain producers in developing countries face budget constraints for promoting their sustainability level. Moreover, sustainability strategies made by grain producers are not stable and are continually changing over time. This study proposes an evolutionary game model to investigate the evolutionary behaviours of a population of financially constrained producers in Iran who gain financial support from one dominant distributor based on their sustainability investment in the long term. This study develops a one-population evolutionary game model to investigate different strategies of producers towards sustainability, considering the time value of money. Moreover, using SimaPro 8.0.3 software, the impacts of non-renewable and renewable electricity consumption on global warming potential are evaluated through life cycle assessment for grain production. Results reveal that using biomass as the source of electricity instead of natural gas in the grain production reduces contribution to global warming potential from 269 kg CO2-eq to 18 kg CO2-eq. This study provides stakeholders who have environmental and social concerns (i.e. grain producers and agricultural production management entities) with insights into keeping their supply chain sustainable. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Johari, M.,
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Nematollahi, M.,
Goh, M.,
Ignatius, J. RAIRO - Operations Research (28047303)55(2)pp. 1077-1111
This study contributes to the periodic review inventory system literature by: (1) investigating customer service level (CSL) as a social responsibility in pharmaceutical supply chains (PSCs) and (2) proposing supply chain contracting to achieve win-win coordination and guarantee a satisfied CSL. Specifically, considering the demand uncertainty as one of the main challenges faced by pharmacies, we analyze how applying contracts to coordinate the inventory policy of a pharmacy with that of its supplier can affect their profits and the CSL offered to society. Having shown the advantages of the centralization compared to the decentralization, we design a coordination scheme based on the quantity discount contract to encourage the players move towards centralization. Under the proposed scheme, we first obtain the minimum and maximum acceptable amounts of discount from each actor's viewpoint. Then, we propose a benefit-sharing strategy in order to make the plan interesting to both sides. The proposed discount contract and benefit-sharing strategy distribute the extra profits equitably between the two participants according to their bargaining power, which can make a win-win condition for two actors. Our results suggest that coordinating review period and order-up-to-level of the retailer and replenishment multiplier of the supplier will be of benefit in terms of both economic profitability and social responsibility. © EDP Sciences, ROADEF, SMAI 2021.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (02175959)38(4)
The purpose of this study is to analytically coordinate joint pricing and periodic review ordering choices for a supply chain (SC) facing stochastic price-dependent demand. In this paper, first, the optimal inventory and pricing strategies made by SC members are obtained under decentralized and centralized models. Thereafter, employing a trade credit contract, it proposes to provide a win-win coordination for the investigated SC. Sensitivity analyses are provided both analytically and numerically which indicate the significance of trade credit contracts in improving both customer service level and customer satisfaction. The results indicate that using trade credit contracts, the coordination of joint pricing and periodic review ordering choices is achievable. Moreover, the proposed trade credit contract has a unique feature in achieving more economic benefit compared to the centralized model under some circumstances. In addition, sensitivity analyses reveal that the coordination of integrated periodic review ordering and pricing choices is beneficial, especially for items with high price sensitivity and high demand uncertainty. Our findings also show the applicability of the trade credit contract for an SC facing highly uncertain demand. © 2021 World Scientific Publishing Co.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Johari, M.,
Ebrahimi, S.,
Rogetzer, P. Computers and Industrial Engineering (03608352)149
In the literature, extensive researches have been done regarding the remanufacturing in closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) and energy-saving efforts in the forward logistics. However, despite the importance of energy-saving effort in the remanufacturing process, its relevancy in the context of CLSCs has not been investigated. This study extends the previous literature on CLSCs with remanufacturing into the CLSCs with simultaneous effects of remanufacturing and energy-saving efforts on environmental sustainability. This study investigates a CLSC including one (re-)manufacturer investing in remanufacturing and energy-saving efforts, two retailers competing on selling items, and two collectors competing on collecting used items. Utilizing channel coordination and game theory approaches, we analyze how competitive sales prices and collection rates are influenced by the remanufacturing and energy-saving efforts. This study sheds new light on the CLSC management and provides theoretical and practical insights into the way managers of CLSC utilize to promote both environmental and economic sustainability. Our findings illuminate the importance of remanufacturing and energy-saving efforts in the collection process. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Nouri-harzvili, M.,
Johari, M.,
Sarker, B.R. Journal of Cleaner Production (09596526)255
This study contributes to the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) literature by investigating: (a) a new function for supply of used products based on the service competition between two dealers and (b) manufacturer's economic incentives to the dealers so as to persuade them to return the collected products. In order to achieve the optimal values of CLSC members’ decisions on pricing, economic incentives, and the level of customer service, both traditional and centralized decision-making structures are investigated. Eventually, a new expense-sharing contract is developed to achieve coordination in the proposed CLSC. Results of implementing the proposed model indicate that coordinating a CLSC under a competitive situation significantly improves the economic performance of the whole CLSC. Moreover, the expense-sharing contract is beneficial for the proposed CLSC from social viewpoint, since the dealers can provide better qualified services and more customers will be satisfied. Consequently, more used products are returned to the manufacturer, which in turn improves the environmental performance of the investigated CLSC. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
RAIRO - Operations Research (28047303)54(5)pp. 1515-1535
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and pricing decisions are proposed for a competitive two-level pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) comprising two pharma-manufacturers and one pharma-retailer. In the investigated PSC, the pharma-manufacturers competitively invest in the CSR effort to produce a new medicine and sell two substitutable products to the market through the pharma-retailer, deciding on selling prices of manufacturers' products. The PSC under consideration is modeled in three decision-making structures, i.e., decentralized, centralized, and coordinated models. In the decentralized model, the pricing and CSR decisions are individually obtained using a pharma-manufacturers-Stackelberg game structure. In the centralized model as a benchmark, the best performance of the entire PSC system is achieved. Finally, to encourage all PSC members to agree on the coordination plan, a CSR cost-sharing contract is proposed. Our results reveal that under competitive environment, the proposed CSR cost-sharing contract is able to increase market demand by significantly decreasing selling prices and increasing level of the CSR efforts. © EDP Sciences, ROADEF, SMAI 2020.
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Nematollahi, M.,
Johari, M.,
Choi, T. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems (21682216)50(12)pp. 4882-4893
The proper supply of end-of-life (EOL) items plays a critical role in the success of remanufacturing systems. In many real-world practices, a remanufacturer has multiple links with independent third party collectors, while these links should be simultaneously coordinated. However, most previous studies mainly focus on reverse supply chain (RSC) coordination in a one-to-one setting (single link). Moreover, the competition among third party collectors affects the acquisition of EOL products and this is an important issue. In this paper, an RSC consisting of a single remanufacturer and duopolistic competing third party collectors is explored and a new mechanism is proposed to achieve channel coordination across multiple links. To be specific, we consider the case when the collectors compete on the acquisition prices offered to the consumers and the remanufacturer decides on the pricing and environmental effort decisions with two considerations: 1) increasing return of EOL items and 2) boosting demand of remanufactured products. The optimal decisions of RSC members and performance of RSC are analyzed under different behaviors of competing collectors. Moreover, a multilateral two-part tariff contract is proposed to coordinate the decisions across multiple links. The results indicate that the proposed contract improves not only profits of the remanufacturer and competing collectors but also the collection quantity of EOL items and demand of remanufactured products, which helps improve the environment. © 2013 IEEE.
Johari, M.,
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Rasti-barzoki, M. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (13665545)128pp. 506-525
With the growing consciousness of social sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a serious challenge to manufacturers. This paper analytically analyzes pricing strategy and long-term behavior of socially concerned manufacturers through a one-population evolutionary game theory. Considering two main strategies, i.e., non-CSR and CSR, we investigate what strategy will eventually be the best strategy for the manufacturers and which strategy will eventually be chosen by the majority of the manufacturers. Besides, analytical sensitivity analyses and managerial insights are derived which reveal that a socially concerned manufacturer can offer a higher price for its products compared to a profit-maximizing manufacturer. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
Seyedhosseini, S.M.,
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Johari, M.,
Jazinaninejad, M. Computers and Industrial Engineering (03608352)135pp. 1103-1126
Social price-sensitivity of demand is proposed for a two-echelon competitive supply chain (SC) comprising a monopolistic manufacturer and two duopolistic retailers. In the investigated SC, the manufacturer invests in corporate social responsibility (CSR) effort, and the retailers compete on selling price. This paper demonstrates the effect of the manufacturer's CSR effort on customers’ price sensitivity. Therefore, the main contribution of this study is to propose a novel competitive price-dependent demand in which customers’ self-price and cross-price sensitivities depend on the manufacturer's CSR effort. The SC under consideration is modelled in decentralized, centralized, and coordinated decision-making structures. Additionally, the effect of different vertical game structures and various game behaviors of the two retailers on the overall chain's profitability, SC members’ profitability, and optimal decisions is analyzed. Our results indicate that the proposed two-part tariff contract increases both the CSR effort and the retail prices. Furthermore, the proposed coordination model can benefit all in the chain; thus providing a win-win situation for all SC members. The results also suggest that customers’ price sensitivity can be effectively decreased by the manufacturer's CSR effort. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Nematollahi, M.,
Johari, M.,
Sarker, B.R. International Journal of Production Economics (09255273)204pp. 108-122
In recent years, competition among enterprises has been significantly increased. Trade credit and promotional effort are two important tools that have been extensively used for increasing competitive advantage. In today's business environment, retailers compete each other on new factors such as the length of credit period offered to end customers. In this paper, the performance of a supply chain (SC) consisting of a monopolistic manufacturer and two competing retailers has been analyzed under a promotional-effort credit-period dependent demand. The promotional efforts made by the manufacturer and the trade credits offered by competing retailers stimulate the market demand. The investigated SC is modeled under the decentralized, centralized and coordinated decision-making structures. In the decentralized model, three game structures are proposed to reflect the retailers' behaviors according to their market dominance: (1) retailers' Cournot behavior, (2) retailers' Collusion behavior, and (3) retailers' Stackelberg behavior. In the centralized model, the optimal decisions on promotional efforts and credit periods are determined to maximize the profits of the entire channel. However, the results indicate that the centralized solution will not necessarily be acceptable to all members as it does not consider the individual profit of each SC member. To remedy shortcomings of the centralized model and coordinate the channel, a novel collaborative model is proposed in order to not only increase the whole SC profits, but also guarantee participation of all SC members. Finally, a numerical example along with a comprehensive sensitivity analysis is carried out to compare the performance of the proposed models. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Johari, M.,
Hosseini-motlagh, S.,
Nematollahi, M.,
Goh, M.,
Ignatius, J. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (13665545)114pp. 270-291
A bi-level credit period coordination scheme is proposed for a supplier-retailer supply chain with a periodic review replenishment policy and price-credit dependent demand. The credit period offered by the retailer to its customers is a promotional effort to induce customer demand and gain market share. We model the problem under decentralized, centralized, and coordinated structures. Through the incentive scheme, the supplier seeks to increase the retailer's credit period by offering the retailer a credit period. Our results suggest that coordinating the inventory, pricing, and credit financing can improve the overall chain and individual member profitability. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Uncertain Supply Chain Management (discontinued) (22916822)6(1)pp. 25-48
In this paper, the issue of cooperative (co-op) promotion efforts is addressed in a two-stage supply chain (SC). The investigated SC includes one monopolistic manufacturer and two duopolistic retailers facing different market demands. The customers’ demand is affected by both advertising efforts of the manufacturer and two retailers. Moreover, the retailers compete with each other on local advertising investments within the market. In order to boost the retailers’ advertising level, it is assumed that the manufacturer pays a ratio of the retailers' advertising expenditures. We propose four non-cooperative game scenarios and one cooperative game. Non-cooperative models are established through both Stackelberg and Nash game between two echelons. Moreover, both Cournot and Collusion behaviors are assumed to be followed by two retailers. We develop a promotion cost sharing contract to achieve the channel coordination. Under cooperation model, all SC members seek to reach the highest profit for the entire SC by considering the bargaining power of the SC participants. In each game scenario the optimal solution and unique equilibrium are determined. In addition, a comparison on the advertising level of all SC members along with the value of participation rate are provided. In addition, the feasibility of the cooperative game is discussed and resulted. © 2018 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. and 2018 by the authors.
