Yulan Wang

The Coordination of Fashion Supply Chains With a Risk-Averse Supplier Under the Markdown Money Policy

Motivated by the popular markdown money policy (MMP) in the textiles and clothing (TC) industry, in this paper, we explore how this policy performs in a two-stage TC/fashion supply chain with an upstream risk-averse manufacturer (supplier) and a downstream risk-neutral retailer. Specifically, we investigate both the optimal decisions of the risk-averse supplier with respect to the MMP contract parameters and the optimal ordering decision of the risk-neutral retailer so that the whole supply chain can be coordinated (i.e., optimized). We then conduct a numerical study with the real data from two companies to explore the performance of the optimal MMP proposed in our paper. Important insights and specific implications to the industry practitioners are discussed.

The impact of ethical fashion on consumer purchase behavior

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ethical fashion and consumer purchase behavior (their willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion), with the focus on consumers’ concerns and beliefs about, and knowledge of, ethical fashion., – A self‐completion questionnaire was administered to 109 respondents. Factor analysis and other statistical analyses were applied to test hypotheses., – The findings suggest that consumer beliefs about ethical fashion, which are based on their perceptions of a company in terms of its reputation in the fashion industry, influence their support for what they perceive as socially and environmentally responsible businesses., – The sample size, which is relatively small, is a limitation for this research. The data were collected in Hong Kong, limiting findings to that geographic region., – An important implication is that consumer education is essential to mitigate the prevailing throwaway culture and raise consumer awareness of ethical issues facing the fashion industry. Thus, retailers should take initiatives to educate consumers so as to ensure the success of their newly‐launched ethical fashion products., – The paper proposes an approach to clearly understand the impacts of ethical fashion on consumer purchase behavior.

Service supply chain management: A review of operational models

Given the growing importance of service supply chain management (SSCM) in operations, we review a selection of papers in the operations research and the management science (OR/MS) literature that focus on innovative measures associated with the SSCM. First, we review and discuss the definitions of service supply chains (SSCs) and categorize SSCs into the Service Only Supply Chains (SOSCs) and the Product Service Supply Chains (PSSCs). Second, by classifying the literature into three major areas, namely service supply management, service demand management, and the coordination of service supply chains, we derive insights into the current state of knowledge in each area, and examine the evolution of the SSCM research over the past decade. Finally, we identify some associated research challenges and explore future directions for research on SSCM from an operational perspective.

Risk management and coordination in service supply chains: information, logistics and outsourcing

A service supply chain, which is a system formed by a network of suppliers, service designers, service providers and other service partners, aims to transfer available scarce resources into services and deliver them to satisfy customer needs. It is a known fact that service supply chain management is playing a more and more important role in modern economies. However, the unique features of service supply chains also create new challenges that call for proper management of the respective operations. In particular, how to coordinate a service supply chain with risk considerations is a critical issue. In this paper, we concisely examine coordination and risk management challenges in service supply chain systems. We also introduce the technical papers featured in the special issue.

Signalling effect of daily deal promotion for a start-up service provider

In this paper, we consider a start-up service provider that decides whether to advertise its service product by offering temporary daily deal promotion. Based on the repeat purchase mechanism, we show that both the commission rate (ie, the revenue-sharing ratio) charged by the daily deal site and the discount level offered by the service provider play important roles in signalling the initially unobservable quality level of the service provider. A high commission rate can facilitate the signalling of the daily deal promotion, and in equilibrium only the high-quality service provider would do daily deal promotion. We find that if the daily deal site adopts a two-part tariff charging scheme, the high-quality service provider can always signal its quality by offering daily deals. And the two-part tariff leads to a lower signalling cost but a higher repeat purchase rate than those under the revenue-sharing if the variable cost of the low-quality service provider is not too large.