Competitive Supply Research Articles

Important aspects of foreign experience in the functioning of cluster formations

Ukraine's economic recovery requires the development of agricultural production on an intensive innovative basis, which will ensure food security of the country, guaranteeing everyone the opportunity to eat a balanced diet with quality and safe food, as well as realize the country's competitive advantages in world food markets. In modern conditions, the country has not yet developed a mechanism for systemic innovation development. A comprehensive solution to the problem of innovative development of the agro-industrial complex is the formation of cluster policy at both the state and regional levels. It is the unification of enterprises and organizations in the cluster of the system that best contributes to the growth of business activity of business structures and overcoming the above-mentioned negative factors that hinder the development of the Ukrainian economy. Coordination of actions and joint efforts of state bodies, educational and scientific organizations, small, medium and large businesses is the key to success, strengthening the competitiveness of the economy, improving the living standards of the population of Ukraine in conditions of fierce competition in the international division of labor. World experience of integration processes shows that integrated enterprises are more efficient and adapted to market economy conditions due to the creation of a single process of manufacturing and promotion of products from its producers to end users, which significantly reduces costs and increases profitability of integrated enterprises, increases volume and quality products, creates unique competitive advantages and increases the market share of sold products. Foreign experience indicates the formation and provision of sustainable competitiveness in the long run of those agricultural enterprises that have merged into clusters. Keywords: cluster, competitiveness, economic development, regional policy

Game-theoretic analysis in an environment-friendly competitive closed-loop dual-channel supply chain with recycling

Game-theoretic analysis in an environment-friendly competitive closed-loop dual-channel supply chain with recycling

Support for digitalization of Russian import substitution in the context of sanctions policy

The paper analyses how effective import substitution policy can contribute to the achievement of Russia’s technological sovereignty, as well as improving national competitiveness and resilience to the sanctions factor. The purpose of the article is to provide recommendations to the system of export state support to stimulate digitalization in the process of import substitution in Russia. What makes the approach special is the analysis of the dynamics of patent activity in the Russian ICT (Information and Communication Technology) segment for the period 2010–2021 and critical analysis of import substitution policy results for the period 2014–2021. Our results show that stimulating of ICT competitive goods supply is necessary to optimize Russian positioning in international trade. The article also considers that in the conditions of sanctions against Russian economy, it is highly necessary to overcome the country’s excessive dependence on import. In conclusion, the author presents the key areas of stimulating digitalization of import substitution in Russia under sanctions.

Optimal pricing and offering reward decisions in a competitive closed-loop dual-channel supply chain with recycling and remanufacturing

Recycling of materials has two significant perspectives: it may reduce the waste, and also, it can save raw materials. This study deals with the returned-obsolete products and the fresh items in a closed-loop dual-channel supply chain, where the manufacturer operates the whole production department and sells a percentage of products directly through his online channel, and delivers the rest of them to the retailer at a wholesale price. Additionally, the retailer collects unused items from customers with an appropriate reward to determine whether the customers intend to return the items. Both players screen the condition of the collected materials and then transfer the qualified materials for further use. Our paper formulates a mathematical model to evaluate scenarios such as scenarios manufacturer Stackelberg, Retailer Stackelberg, vertical Nash under the decentralized system, and a centralized system. The study is primarily concerned with finding optimal pricing plans and rewarding the customer analytically under various scenarios. Numerical explorations signify that the manufacturer Stackelberg’s scenario is more economical than the retailer Stackelberg and vertical Nash frameworks. The findings illustrate that the higher acceptance ratios of the returned materials benefit all the members and increase the keenness to return. Also, it is important for members to control the price-sensitive parameters within the demand function in order to save their markets. Further, the study suggests that an increase in production cost forces us to collect more returned materials, regardless of whether the increased remanufacturing cost suppresses that collection.

Decisions of competing supply chain with altruistic retailer under risk aversion

Abstract This paper considers the supply chain composed of altruistic retailers and selfish manufacturers under risk aversion. We use the mean variance (MV) method to construct two types of behavior models. One is a two-stage supply chain model with a single manufacturer and a single retailer, and the other is a competitive supply chain model with two retailers and two manufacturers. We discuss the decision-making problems under manufacturer Stackelberg (MS) game and retailer Stackelberg (RS) game, respectively. We analyze the role of risk aversion and power structure. Results show that the more risk aversion manufacturers are, the lower the emission reduction levels are. It also find that the prices increase with power shift from retailers to manufacturers. Finally, we point out that the competing can help the firms earn more benefits via numerical studies.

Dual-Channel Pricing of Online Retail Based on Evolutionary Game Theory and Coevolutionary Algorithm

For the offline market entry strategy and product pricing of online retailers in the retailer competitive supply chain structure, a supply chain game model composed of a single manufacturer, a single traditional retailer, and a single online retailer is constructed and an improved coevolutionary game algorithm (ICGA) is proposed to solve the model. In addition, a dynamic optimization model based on dissatisfaction is established to dynamically adjust the coevolutionary game algorithm. The research shows that when online retailers open offline channels, with the increase of offline market share of online retailers, the profits of traditional retailers decrease and manufacturers increase, while the profits of online retailers increase first and then decrease; there is a maximum point. The profits of online retailers, manufacturers, and supply chains will be optimized due to the opening of offline channels. When the offline market share of online retailers is lower than a specific threshold, the new offline channels of online retailers will also make the profits of traditional retailers greater. At this time, the profits of all members of the supply chain will be optimized. Finally, the final optimization stability strategy can make the offline retail and online retail achieve the best operation state, and the overall theoretical rate of supply chain has been significantly improved, which proves the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed model and algorithm.

Information services and omnichannel retailing strategy choices of e-commerce platforms with supplier competition

Information services and omnichannel retailing strategy choices of e-commerce platforms with supplier competition

Autonomous cars and activity-based bottleneck model: How do in-vehicle activities determine aggregate travel patterns?

When traveling in an autonomous car, the travel time can be used for performing activities other than driving. This paper distinguishes users’ work-related and home-related activities in autonomous cars and proposes an activity-based bottleneck model to investigate travelers’ behavior in the morning commute, shedding light on how the scope to undertake in-vehicle activities affects travelers’ trip-timing preferences and decisions, and therewith social welfare. These welfare effects can be expected to depend on the optimality of both the market for trips, and the market for vehicles. We therefore consider different supply regimes for vehicles, as well as unpriced congestion versus queue-eliminating road pricing. We reveal analytically the relationship between various in-vehicle activities and trip-timing decisions by users of autonomous and normal cars. Three supply regimes for autonomous cars are investigated: welfare-maximizing public supply, competitive marginal cost supply, and profit-maximizing private supply. Pricing rules under different supply regimes are compared analytically, and the relative efficiencies in terms of the welfare gains are compared numerically. The results show that travelers’ in-vehicle activity choices have significant impacts on travel patterns, congestion externality, supply decisions, and the associated welfare effects.

Rise and fall (and recovery?) of the blueberry business in Argentina: an analysis of private and public–private strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand how Argentina has successfully developed a non-traditional export business such as blueberry, explain the causes of the most recent competitive crisis and analyze the emerging public–private strategies as a response.Design/methodology/approachThe unit of analysis of this study is the blueberry agro-system which is a complex network of backward, forward and lateral linkages with specialized buyers, suppliers, institutions and other economic agents. Considering the qualitative and relational nature of the dimensions studied, a case study methodology was adopted. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources through in-depth interview techniques and documentary analysis. These techniques were complemented by the processing of quantitative information to enrich the analysis and put the case into a broader context.FindingsThe main finding of this study is that Argentina's export-oriented business model based on off-season high prices and scarcity of supply in the Northern Hemisphere markets must be revised and reformulated. This revision, already underway, was triggered by the Peruvian competition and is driven by the firm compromise of companies and chambers and in many cases has the backing of public bodies; this revision is an open-ended process in which the success of efforts to recreate profitability and competitiveness of the sector is not guaranteed.Research limitations/implicationsThe case study methodology implemented in the study implies that the main findings cannot be directly extrapolated to other fruits or crops. In fact, lessons and policy implications for other sectors should be conceived with caution. Another limitation is that the research relies on the perspectives of domestic stakeholders who have to respond and adapt to specific rules established by traders and supermarkets. The views and perspectives of these big companies, which manage a buyer-driven global value chain, could not be incorporated and is an area for further research.Originality/valueThe study uses the concept of temporal window to analyze the business opportunity for off-season fresh fruits exports. This concept is a key to understand both the development of a modern value chain in a South American country to market blueberries in the Northern Hemisphere and the crisis created by the emergence of new more competitive suppliers such as Peru. The main explanatory factors are historical, technological, institutional, firm-related and market.

A Stochastic Nash Equilibrium Problem for Medical Supply Competition

In this paper, we study the competition of healthcare institutions for medical supplies in emergencies caused by natural disasters. In particular, we develop a two-stage procurement planning model in a random environment. We consider a pre-event policy, in which each healthcare institution seeks to minimize the purchasing cost of medical items and the transportation time from the first stage, and a recourse decision process to optimize the expected overall costs and the penalty for the prior plan, in response to each disaster scenario. Thus, each institution deals with a two-stage stochastic programming model that takes into account the unmet demand at the first stage, and the consequent penalty. Then, the institutions simultaneously solve their own stochastic optimization problems and reach a stable state governed by the stochastic Nash equilibrium concept. Moreover, we formulate the problem as a variational inequality; both the discrete and the general probability distribution cases are described. We also present an alternative formulation using infinite-dimensional duality tools. Finally, we discuss some numerical illustrations applying the progressive hedging algorithm.

China's textbook approach to regulatory reform of the natural gas market

Natural gas, as a transition fuel, is considered essential for China's decarbonization and local air protection policy, yet the regulatory structure China relies on to promote gas use remains under-researched. China's central government recognizes the need for market-based reforms of the gas sector, but what regulatory and policy adjustments are necessary to reorganize gas supply on a market basis? The textbook approach to energy market reform, and its implementation in the European Union, provides important guidance on how to create a regulatory basis to support competition in gas supply, provided national institutional characteristics are taken into account. This article engages in a comparative analysis of China's gas market reform policies and their implementation at the provincial level, focusing on Guangdong, a laboratory of economic reforms in China. The analysis demonstrates that reforms in 2019–2021 integrated key aspects of the textbook model in China's gas regulations, including third-party access, price deregulation and ownership unbundling. However, the textbook is of limited use to address remaining institutional barriers to reform, including resistance of distribution monopolies to competition from state-owned enterprises. Guangdong's experience shows that reform is possible, but only if accompanied by institutional and pricing adjustments reconciling vested interests with competition.

Using bibliometric research to advance the business-to-business sustainability literature: Establishing an integrative conceptual framework for future application

With 4,249 articles and 245,255 citations, this study identifies four important research topics for three time periods spanning five decades (1971–2020) in business-to-business (B2B) sustainability research: stakeholder orientation and corporate social performance, environmentally-focused resources and their influence on competitive supply chains, internal organization and relational contracting, and trust and commitment. Based on established theory identified in this evaluation of the B2B sustainability literature, an integrative research framework is introduced for future consideration by the domain. The model possesses three components of a firm’s strategic focus (partnership type, stakeholder orientation, and sector emphasis) that affect its supply chain collaboration. A greater understanding of the company’s supply chain collaboration lies in how the influence of its relationship stage, sustainability capabilities, and channel pressure can impact different sustainability performance outcomes – be they social, environmental, or economic. Additionally, we identify internal (top management initiatives and sustainability investments) and external (economic, technological, and market uncertainties) non-channel drivers and barriers as critical in their moderation of the proposed framework to provide considerable opportunity for future B2B sustainability research endeavors.

Impacts of Supply Chain Competition on Firms' Carbon Emission Reduction and Social Welfare under Cap-and-Trade Regulation.

In the carbon neutrality era, firms are facing increasingly intense environmental pressure and market competition. This paper considers two competitive supply chains with consumers’ low-carbon preference under the cap-and-trade regulation, each of which consists of one manufacturer and one retailer. Considering competition or integration in vertical and horizontal directions, four different supply chain structures are modeled. By applying a game-theoretical approach, the equilibrium pricing, carbon emission reduction (CER) level, profit, and social welfare are obtained. Through comparison and analysis, the economic and environmental impacts of supply chain competition are explored. The results show that (1) the carbon quota acts as a kind of financial subsidy and brings direct economic profit to the supply chain, which cannot be used to incentivize the firm to invest in CER technology; (2) the HCVI strategy can bring the highest CER level, the most market demand, and social welfare among the four strategies; (3) for the enterprise and the government, it is recommended to take measures and enact policies to strengthen the vertical integration and horizontal competition between supply chains. Our study can guide firms on how to cope with increasingly fierce industry competition and environmental pressure by adjusting their operational decisions and supply chain structure.

Interaction between innovation choice and market-entry timing in a competitive fashion supply chain

We consider a duopoly in which a premium firm (Firm 1) competes with a regular firm (Firm 2). They launch a new fashion product, adopting one of two types of innovation, qualitative or non-qualitative, which offer different levels of market acceptance and uncertainty. We consider two groups of fashion consumers, snobs and conformists (defined by preference for exclusivity or conformity). We first examine the case in which the premium firm commits to entering the market first and chooses its type of innovation, and then the regular firm decides on market-entry timing and innovation type. The price game and the strategy interaction between the two firms are examined. We show that consumers' exclusivity and conformity positively impact the optimal decisions of the two firms when the initial market share of snobs is large. When the market-share loss due to late entry is sufficiently high, Firm 1 may prefer a non-qualitative innovation under certain identified conditions; otherwise, it always prefers a qualitative innovation. Firm 2 always benefits from Firm 1's choice of qualitative rather than non-qualitative innovation. We further discuss the strategy interaction when the premium firm commits to entering the market late.

Integrating corporate foresight with open innovation: enhancing competitiveness of equipment and technology suppliers to the US forest sector

Equipment and technology suppliers to the United States (US) forest sector are confronting challenges and opportunities to respond to disruptive changes in an increasingly challenging business environment. Integrating corporate foresight (CF) with open innovation (OI) may contribute to enhanced competitiveness of these equipment and technology suppliers in today’s complex business context. Due to its collaborative and interdisciplinary nature, open innovation is crucial for success. Corporate foresight may enhance the ability of firms to implement open innovation, in turn enhancing innovation in the US forest sector through collaboration. This study uses data from a questionnaire-based study to investigate the current state of OI and CF activities that are applied by equipment and technology suppliers to the US forest sector. The results present strengths and weaknesses of OI and CF maturity among respondents and indicate that improved collaboration is necessary for OI management and a culture change must be facilitated for CF management.

Agency or Wholesale? The Role of Retail Pass-Through

With the rapid growth of e-commerce, agency selling is currently gaining popularity among online retailers (e-tailers). Prior research implicitly abstracts away cross-brand pass-through under traditional wholesale selling (i.e., how the retail price of another brand adjusts to changes in a given brand’s wholesale price) and suggests that a shift to agency selling benefits e-tailers but harms suppliers. As an important counterweight to this result, we discover that an e-tailer’s choice regarding selling format is critically moderated by retail pass-through behavior. On the one hand, agency selling can improve channel efficiency compared with wholesale selling. On the other hand, the relative intensity of supplier competition between these two selling formats is ambiguous. We show that the existing result applies only for a nonnegative cross-brand pass-through rate (e.g., under linear demands); otherwise (e.g., under multiplicative or exponential demands), the opposite may hold. Interestingly, we find that the conflict over the preference of selling format may not arise, and that all channel members could be better off with wholesale selling. Compared with the case of Bertrand competition, the e-tailer is even more likely to adopt wholesale selling under Cournot competition. Finally, under agency selling with an endogenous commission fee, we advise caution regarding the seemingly innocuous normalization of suppliers’ marginal costs. Surprisingly, suppliers may benefit from higher marginal costs. Overall, our findings not only shed light on the theory of agency selling but also provide a plausible explanation for the observation that wholesale selling continues to prevail in online markets. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing.

Effects of green improvement and pricing policies in a double dual-channel competitive supply chain under decision-making power strategies

With the intensive growth of internet use, the customers choose the online market as the right preference. Hence, manufacturers are attracted to launch an online channel that includes a retail channel. To maintain the versatile demand types of products, a retailer is to stock more than one product of the same category, and consequently, he has to purchase products from different manufacturers. This article formulates a dual-channel supply chain model with two manufacturers and a standard retailer, where the optimal online prices, retail prices, wholesale prices, and level of green improvements are decided under different types of decision making power strategies such as Centralized, joint manufacturers Stackelberg, separate Stackelberg, Nash games are investigated. The optimal results are derived and compared with the help of a numerical example. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is performed to scrutinize the effect of some important parameters. It is found that the green level is higher in a double dual-channel model than in a single dual-channel model. Moreover, the own-channel price sensitivity parameters affect the profit functions of the members negatively. The manufacturers must control the cost-coefficients of greening to increase the green level of the manufacturing products.

Financial hedging in two-stage sustainable commodity supply chains

This paper studies the optimal financial hedging strategy and sustainable development in four supply chain structures. To help manufacturers reasonably hedge the risks caused by the fluctuation of input commodity prices, we use an index-based price contract by which manufacturers can transfer part of their risk to downstream retailers and realize risk-sharing in the supply chain. We discuss the optimal hedging strategy and the product's green degree in four structures: monopoly (manufacturer sets contract), monopoly with Nash bargaining, retailer competition, and manufacturer competition. Our model follows two-stage Stackelberg game, which delivers us the results that the hedge ratio is positively related to the consumer's preference for green products but is inversely related to the green product research and development costs. Interestingly, in the manufacturer competition supply chain, the profits of both manufacturers increase significantly when the input commodity price fluctuates slightly, but as that fluctuation continually increases, the profit of one manufacturer declines, while the profit of the other rises slowly. Considering another perspective, green degree competition harms the profits of the manufacturers and the retailer, as well as decreasing the green degree.

The U.S.-China Supply Competition for Rare Earth Elements: a Dynamic Game View

The U.S.-China Supply Competition for Rare Earth Elements: a Dynamic Game View

Retailer's make-or-buy decision for remanufactured products under in-house yield uncertainty

Remanufacturing is a sustainable practice, as it can save resources and alleviate environmental pollution. However, the production process can be subject to yield uncertainty if the manufacturer has limited remanufacturing capability. This study considers a retailer that sells both new and remanufactured products simultaneously. The retailer can either produce the remanufactured product in-house under yield uncertainty (Scenario I), or remove this uncertainty by relying on a third-party remanufacturer (Scenario O). We investigate the retailer's make-or-buy decision under in-store competition (between new and remanufactured products) and find that, remarkably, consumers’ high valuation of the remanufactured product induces the retailer to order an increased quantity of new products in both Scenarios O and I. In addition, we find that the retailer can obtain a higher profit in Scenario O because the new product supplier will strategically lower the wholesale price owing to the intensified supply competition, which could also benefit the new product supplier and, hence, achieve a win–win situation.