International Journal of Production Economics最新文献

Cross-channel influence of blockchain technology on green supply chains under asymmetric retail platform competition

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-03-03 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109584

Chung-Chi Hsieh, Ching-Yu Wu, Artya Lathifah

As consumer demand for eco-friendly products continues to grow, manufacturers are increasingly driven to enhance product greenness and disclose this information. Blockchain technology emerges as a pivotal enabler, facilitating credible communication of manufacturers’ sustainability efforts to consumers through retail platforms and influencing supply chain decisions concerning sustainability, pricing, and blockchain adoption. While existing research has extensively examined the positive moderating effect of blockchain technology on consumers’ perceived value of product greenness in retail competition or green supply chain contexts, there remains a significant gap regarding its cross-channel influence in situations of information disclosure asymmetry across retail platforms. To address this gap, we investigate the interactive dynamics of a green supply chain under asymmetric platform competition, where the incumbent platform offers blockchain services while the new platform does not. Our findings indicate that the manufacturer’s decision to adopt blockchain depends significantly on market conditions. Notably, the manufacturer’s inclination towards blockchain adoption widens for a broader range of blockchain costs when the cross-channel influence is pronounced. Moreover, the alignment of the manufacturer’s blockchain adoption strategy with the incumbent platform’s preference is not guaranteed. In scenarios where their interests diverge, joint efforts to reduce blockchain costs can be a viable strategy. Our parametric analysis further reveals that while the cross-channel influence contributes positively to enhancing product greenness and the manufacturer’s profit, it could diminish the profits of both platforms under certain conditions.

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引用次数: 0

Balancing worker and producer benefits in economic production quantity

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-03-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109582

M.A. Darwish

Worker welfare and operational efficiency are critical components of production systems, yet they are often considered separately in the literature. This paper integrates these two aspects by extending the classical Economic Production Quantity (EPQ) model to account for worker fatigue accumulation and recovery. We use a linear function to model fatigue, estimated using the least squares method, as it provides a practical representation of fatigue pattern. By explicitly incorporating fatigue as a time-varying factor, this study provides a more accurate description of production dynamics, providing practical insights for labour-intensive industries such as manufacturing.

Unlike previous lot-sizing models that incorporate worker fatigue, this paper focuses on manufacturing, exploring challenges such as inventory buildup and depletion throughout the inventory cycle. The proposed model finds the optimal lot size by minimizing total costs for producers while ensuring workers protection through fatigue limits.

The model converges to the classical EPQ and EOQ models when specific input parameters are set to certain values, demonstrating its adaptability. An extensive sensitivity analysis using a 3⁹ factorial design is conducted, resulting in a comprehensive computational analysis involving solving 16,427 optimization problems, which further strengthens the robustness of the proposed model. This enhances the understanding of model parameter interactions and ensures its applicability in real-world scenarios.

The findings suggest that integrating worker fatigue dynamics into the EPQ model not only optimizes production but also contributes to improved worker well-being and cost management. Thus, this model provides a mutually beneficial framework for both producers and workers.

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引用次数: 0

Are we truly ready for what is coming? A reflection on supply chain resilience in face of megatrends

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-28 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109585

Guilherme Luz Tortorella , Tarcisio Abreu Saurin , Moacir Godinho Filho , Rafaela Alfalla-Luque , Andrea Trianni

Supply chains (SCs) have increasingly faced major disruptive events that defy existing management approaches, affecting their processes in both the short and long term. Current megatrends (e.g., digital transformation, aging population, growing urbanization, shifts in consumer demands, geopolitical tension, depletion of natural resources, climate change) have impacted organizations, requiring managers to rethink the foundational assumptions and develop new capabilities to obtain more resilient SCs. In this study, we analyse the readiness of SCs for coping with disruptions caused by seven megatrends. Based on extensive debates among the authors and supported by a narrative literature review, we framed this analysis according to four potentials of resilient systems (monitoring, anticipation, responding, and learning) and three types of SC structure (linear, networked, and hub-and-spoke). We debated and pooled our viewpoints to identify readiness levels for coping with each megatrend, which allowed the formulation of research propositions to be further investigated. Overall, the readiness of all resilience potentials varies across megatrends and SC structures, although the potentials to anticipate, respond and learn seem to be less developed (either lowly or moderately ready) than monitoring, especially when considering disruptions caused by changing demographics and climate change. Further, linear SCs appear to be more vulnerable to most megatrends. Finally, we outline opportunities for further investigation regarding SCs resilience to megatrends’ disruptions.

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引用次数: 0

Strategic service supplier selection in servitized manufacturing: A linguistic preference-based decision support system

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109566

Yanlin Li , Y.P. Tsang , C.K.M. Lee , Zhen-Song Chen

The global transition toward manufacturing servitization has compelled product-centric manufacturers to establish strategic alliances with knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) providers, facilitating cost-effective transformation and enhanced product-service offerings. While traditional supplier selection has been extensively studied, the unique challenges of evaluating and selecting service suppliers in servitized manufacturing contexts remain inadequately addressed, particularly regarding systematic decision support mechanisms. This study addresses this research gap by developing a novel linguistic preference-based decision support system for strategic service supplier selection in servitized manufacturing environments. The proposed system introduces a comprehensive evaluation framework that integrates service, supplier, and societal dimensions through 21 meticulously defined criteria. To address the inherent uncertainty and complexity in service supplier assessment, the framework incorporates flexible linguistic decision-making methods that enable systematic criteria weight determination and supplier ranking. The system's practical validity was demonstrated through empirical implementation in a multinational servitized manufacturing company, where it successfully facilitated strategic supplier selection decisions. The findings reveal that successful service supplier selection in servitized manufacturing extends beyond conventional metrics, highlighting the critical importance of factors such as collaboration capability, communication effectiveness, social responsibility, and domain expertise of KIBS providers. This research contributes significantly to both decision sciences and manufacturing servitization literature while offering practical insights for manufacturers navigating their servitization transformation.

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引用次数: 0

Cooperation dilemmas in construction and demolition waste recycling: From understanding to navigating

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-25 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109580

Weize Lin, Jing Zhang, Minjiu Yu, Ruwen Tan

High-quality recycling is considered the optimal practice for managing the significant volume of construction and demolition waste (C&DW). However, the lack of coordinated cooperation among stakeholders poses challenges in sustaining and advancing the recycling supply chain. However, the previous research on the decision-making of partnerships among companies is limited despite its importance. Hence, our research framework seeks to address the gap, unfolding from understanding to navigating. Initially, to understand the status quo, we model a partnership decision game where companies face a choice: either commit to in-depth cooperation benefiting from coordination contracts, or opt for surface-level cooperation via straightforward wholesale transactions. Our findings reveal the transfer effect that relation-specific investments of low-power companies may undermine the vested interests of high-power companies, which leads to a prisoner's dilemma dominated by surface-level cooperation. Subsequently, we propose two remedies, a subsidy scheme and a policy of strategic information revelation, to address the dilemma. Specifically, we suggest a Cooperation Subsidy to motivate the remanufacturer and the collector to choose in-depth cooperation, which proves more efficient than conventional economic regulations. Moreover, we design a signal structure based on Bayesian Persuasion to persuade the remanufacturer to opt for in-depth cooperation. This study seeks to provide theoretical support for government policy development.

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引用次数: 0

Board composition and sustainable supply chain management: Environmental committee's role

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-25 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109579

Abdullah S. Karaman , Hany Elbardan , Ali Uyar , Kannan Govindan

Due to increasing climate change concerns, companies are under pressure from stakeholders, including regulators, consumers, and investors, to integrate environmental initiatives into their sustainable supply chain (SSC). Although an increasing body of research investigates the predictors of the environmental practices of firms, focusing on predictors of SSC practices is of critical importance to reduce environmental externalities such as carbon emissions and waste production. Thus, we focus on several board attributes' roles in firm SSC practices and explore whether the environmental committee enriches the directors' role in firm SSC practices. This study uses 62,958 firm-year observations from 2002 to 2021 covering nine different industries from 69 countries. Executing sector-country-year fixed-effects regression, we indicate that while board independence and board gender diversity reinforce the adoption of SSC practices, board expertise and board tenure weaken their adoption. Furthermore, the environmental management team positively moderates between board gender diversity and board tenure and SSC practices, whereas it does not have a significant moderating role between board independence and expertise and SSC practices. We contribute to the literature by identifying which directors are for and against transforming supply chain function towards more sustainable practices such that firms’ nomination committees can shape their upper-echelons accordingly. In addition, our comprehensive SSC proxy based on five metrics-index may guide firms in formulating their own SSC policies. Lastly, we advance the existing literature by highlighting the role of the environmental committee in mobilizing board capital for better SSC management.

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引用次数: 0

Credit where it's due: The synergy of trade credit and innovation in R&D-driven firms

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109576

Bahadır Karakoç

In business transactions, information asymmetry poses significant challenges, particularly for innovative firms. This study investigates the strategic role of trade credit in overcoming these obstacles and fostering growth in R&D-investing companies. We hypothesize that firms offering more trade credit (H1) and investing in R&D (H2) can enhance their growth prospects. Furthermore, we propose that combining R&D investments and trade credit (H3) leads to greater growth than either activity alone, as trade credit facilitates the commercialization of R&D outputs while mitigating information asymmetry. We analyze trade credit's amount and duration using the Difference Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to address potential endogeneity and firm-level heterogeneity. This is complemented with Fixed Effects Ordinary Least Squares (FE-OLS) estimations for robustness. Our findings are further supported through two-stage least squares (2SLS) and additional GMM analyses with an external instrument. The results reveal that while both R&D investments and trade credit supply individually contribute to growth, firms combining R&D with trade credit experience significantly higher growth rates. This highlights trade credit's critical role in facilitating the commercialization of R&D outputs. The findings also underscore the critical importance of communication and cooperation between business partners in fostering growth.

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引用次数: 0

Cooperative service strategy for competitive platforms under multi-homing

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-21 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109575

Zongyin Li , Shaofu Du , Li Hu , Chong Huang

Facing fierce market competition, increasingly platforms are trying to cooperate with competitors on services. Although the cooperative service strategy has been widely adopted by platforms, the feasibility of the cooperative service strategy and its impact on platform operation decisions are still ambiguous. This paper investigates the impact of service investment on platforms and the service strategy choice of the competing platforms in the scenarios of symmetric service costs and asymmetric service costs respectively. According to whether platforms cooperate on services, we divide service strategies into the non-cooperative service strategy and the cooperative service strategy. We demonstrate that service investment mitigates price competition on the service investment side while intensifying it on the other side when users are allowed to be multi-homing. We identify the feasible range of the cooperative service strategy; the platforms adopt the cooperative service strategy when the difference in service costs is small. Otherwise, the platform with the cost advantage refuses to cooperate. Counterintuitively, although the cooperative service strategy can alleviate the service competition of platforms, the more intense the platform's competition for users, the lower the possibility of platforms adopting the cooperative service strategy.

{"title":"Cooperative service strategy for competitive platforms under multi-homing","authors":"Zongyin Li , Shaofu Du , Li Hu , Chong Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109575","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109575","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Facing fierce market competition, increasingly platforms are trying to cooperate with competitors on services. Although the cooperative service strategy has been widely adopted by platforms, the feasibility of the cooperative service strategy and its impact on platform operation decisions are still ambiguous. This paper investigates the impact of service investment on platforms and the service strategy choice of the competing platforms in the scenarios of symmetric service costs and asymmetric service costs respectively. According to whether platforms cooperate on services, we divide service strategies into the non-cooperative service strategy and the cooperative service strategy. We demonstrate that service investment mitigates price competition on the service investment side while intensifying it on the other side when users are allowed to be multi-homing. We identify the feasible range of the cooperative service strategy; the platforms adopt the cooperative service strategy when the difference in service costs is small. Otherwise, the platform with the cost advantage refuses to cooperate. Counterintuitively, although the cooperative service strategy can alleviate the service competition of platforms, the more intense the platform's competition for users, the lower the possibility of platforms adopting the cooperative service strategy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":14287,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Production Economics","volume":"283 ","pages":"Article 109575"},"PeriodicalIF":9.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143479242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Competition or co-opetition: Optimal fresh produce delivery mode strategy for livestreaming platform

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-20 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109565

Yuqiu Xu , Kaiying Cao

In recent years, selling fresh produce online has become increasingly popular, for instance, many e-tailers (e.g., Amazon and JD) with self-built delivery systems and livestreaming platforms (e.g., East Buy) have launched their private fresh produce labels. Moreover, some e-tailers are adopting livestreaming technology (e.g., JD Live) to sell private fresh produce labels. In these contexts, livestreaming platforms need to make strategic decisions about which delivery mode to use: PDM (platform delivery mode operated by e-tailers) or TDM (third-party delivery mode). To address these challenges, this study develops four theoretical models and provides key managerial insights. The findings indicate that, regardless of whether e-tailers enter the livestreaming market, delivery service level difference and base market potential will have a significant impact on livestreaming platforms’ optimal delivery mode strategies. Specifically, livestreaming platforms should choose PDM for their private fresh produce labels with relatively large base market potential. For fresh produce with relatively low base market potential, the delivery mode choice between PDM and TDM depends on the difference in delivery service levels. Furthermore, e-tailers entering the livestreaming market will lead livestreaming platforms to be more willing to choose TDM. These findings hold robust when considering the unit production cost of fresh produce, quantity loss of fresh produce, two independent departments owned by e-tailers and different freshness-keeping effort cost coefficients.

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引用次数: 0

To Cooperate or Not: Evaluating process innovation strategies in battery recycling and product innovation

IF 9.8 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

International Journal of Production Economics

Pub Date : 2025-02-20 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2025.109559

Zhifeng Qian , Joshua Ignatius , Junwu Chai , Krishna Mohan Thazhathu Valiyaveettil

Emerging technology products like retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries encounter technical challenges during the collecting and remanufacturing phase. Process innovation for recycling (PIR) presents an opportunity to improve the efficiency of these product recycling processes. To investigate how upstream and downstream firms formulate optimal PIR strategies under the interaction of product innovation and PIR, and to analyze the impact of this interaction on operational decisions, we construct Stackelberg game models comprising a battery supplier and an EV manufacturer, both of which have the potential to assume leadership roles. The supplier engages in recycling and makes PIR investment decisions: invest independently, outsource it to the manufacturer, or cooperate with the manufacturer. The manufacturer performs product innovation and decides whether to participate in PIR. Our results indicate that cooperation is not always the preferred strategy for both firms and tends to be favored only when PIR investment efficiency is relatively low. Although the supplier engages in remanufacturing, the manufacturer may exert higher PIR efforts. When product innovation and PIR are carried out separately by upstream and downstream firms, the two innovations maintain a complementary relationship, which provides the possibility for manufacturers to offer higher-quality products at lower prices. Furthermore, firms are more inclined to invest in PIR when acting as the supply chain leader. However, the first-mover advantage may turn into a disadvantage under collaboration model, which provides insights for firms not to blindly pursue the leader. The sequential innovation decisions and two-period model settings are further explored as model extensions.

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引用次数: 0