• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.317-329
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• 2013

In recent years, for the purpose of solving the problem regarding environment protection and resource saving, certain measures and policies have been promoted to establish a green supply chains (GSC) with material flows from collection of used products to reuse of recycled parts in production of products. In this study, we propose an optimal operation of the GSC while considering the collection incentive of the used products and quality for recycling of used products. Two types of decision-making approaches are used for product quantity, collection incentive of used products and lower limit of quality level of reusable parts in the used products for recycling in the GSC. One is the decision-making under an independent policy in decentralized supply chains where a retailer and a manufacturer make decisions so as to maximize profits individually. The other is the decision-making under a cooperative policy in centralized supply chains where a retailer and a manufacturer make decisions cooperatively so as to maximize the whole system's profit. Additionally, we also discuss supply chain coordination as a manufacturer-retailer partnership based on profit sharing. Furthermore, we show the effect of the quality of the reusable parts on the optimal decisions. The collection incentive of the used products was found to bring more profitability to the GSC activity.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.33-47
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to find method to meet the greater retailer's supplier assessment requirement So, this study analyze the greater retailer's requirement for supplier assesment and research global standard which is used instead of supplier assessment requirement that is recognized by global retailers initiative. Next, this study analyze domestic aquaculture certification requirement and compare the global standard with the domestic requirement by using The Most Similar Systems Design. As a result, this comparing has founded all of two domestic certifications are similar to global standard's Good Aquaculture Practice module but those are a little bit different from System Element module. Therefore, this study suggest tree alternative. First, make up for the weak points in the current domestic aquaculture certification system. Second, the introduction of global aquaculture management system certification as supporting by government. Third, development of new standard in accordance with global food standard. This study has major implications for research into development of domestic aquaculture standard.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.382-392
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• 2006

Vendor-managed inventory policy(VMIP) is a supply-chain initiative where the supplier is authorized to manage inventories of items at retail locations. In VMIP, the supplier monitors sales and stock information at retail locations and makes decisions of inventory replenishment and transportation simultaneously. VMIP has been known as an effective supply chain strategy that can realize many of benefits obtainable only in a fully integrated supply chain. However, VMIP does not always lead to lower the supply chain cost. It sometimes generates the total supply chain cost higher than the traditional retailer-managed inventory policy (RMIP). In this paper, we perform a comparison study on RMIP and VMIP in the retail supply chain which consists of a single supplier and a number of retailers. We formulate mixed integer programming models for both RMIP and VMIP with vehicle routing problems and perform computational experiments on various test problems. Furthermore, we derive the conditions which guarantee the dominant position for VMIP with respect to total supply chain cost in the simple retail supply chain.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.44-57
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• 2015

In recent years, for the purpose of solving the problem regarding environment protection and resource saving, certain measures and policies have been promoted to establish a reverse supply chains (RSCs) with material flows from collection of used products to reuse the recycled parts in production of products. It is necessary to analyze behaviors of RSC members to determine the optimal operation. This paper discusses a RSC with a retailer and a manufacturer and verifies the behavior strategies of RSC members which may change over time in response to changes parameters related to the recycling promotion activity in RSC. A retailer takes two behaviors: cooperation/non-cooperation in recycling promotion activity. A manufacturer takes two behaviors: monitoring/non-monitoring of behaviors of the retailer. Evolutionary game theory combining the evolutionary theory of Darwin with game theory is adopted to clarify analytically evolutionary outcomes driven by a change in each behavior of RSC members over time. The evolutionary stable strategies (ESSs) for RSC members' behaviors are derived by using the replicator dynamics. The analysis numerically demonstrates how parameters of the recycling promotion activity: (i) sale promotion cost, (ii) monitoring cost, (iii) compensation and (iv) penalty cost affect the judgment of ESSs of behaviors of RSC members.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.22-43
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• 2017

It is urgently-needed to construct a green supply chain (GSC) from collection of used products through recycling of them to sales of products using the recycled parts. Besides, it is necessary to consider the uncertainty in product demand as a risk in a GSC. This study proposes the optimal operations for a GSC with a retailer and a manufacturer. A retailer pays an incentive for collection of used products from customers and sells a single type of products in a market. A manufacturer produces the products ordered by the retailer, using recyclable parts with acceptable quality and compensates the collection cost of used products as to the recycled parts. This paper discusses the following risk attitudes: risk-neutral attitude, risk-averse attitude, and risk-prone attitude. Using mean-variance analysis, the optimal decisions for product order quantity, collection incentive, and lower limit of quality level, in the decentralized GSC (DGSC) and the integrated GSC (IGSC) are made. DGSC optimizes the utility function of each member. IGSC does that of the whole system. The analysis numerically investigates how (i) risk attitude and (ii) quality of recyclable parts affect the optimal operations. Supply chain coordination between GSC members to shift IGSC from DGSC is discussed.

• Management Science and Financial Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2005

In this article we consider a supply chain consisting of a risk-sensitive manufacturer and a riskneutral retailer. The manufacturer maximizes her individual expected profit by designing a supply chain coordinating returns contract (SCRC) that consists of (i) a channel coordinating returns policy that maximizes the supply chain joint expected profit, and (ii) a profit sharing arrangement that gives the retailer an expected profit only slightly higher than that in the no returns case so that it is just enough to induce the retailer to accept the SCRC. Thus, the manufacturer captures as high a percentage as possible of the jointly maximum supply chain profit. However, this contract can sometimes lead to the manufacturer's resulting realized profit being lower than that in the no returns case when demand is lower than expected. In this context, even though profit is sufficiently attractive on average, will the risk-sensitive manufacturer ever consider applying a SCRC? Our research raises this question and focuses on designing a SCRC that can significantly increase the probability of the manufacturer's resulting realized profit being at least higher than that in the no returns case.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.85-94
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• 2020

Purpose: This study investigates the influence of VMI on the supply chain performance over time. By examining each supply chain member's ongoing performance, this study figures out how VMI allows the vendor to overcome the initial loss and eventually provides the benefit to every supply chain member. Research design, data, and methodology: The proposed mathematical model describes the supply chain system where a manufacturer and a retailer make the operational decisions to maximize their own profits. By using the numerical examples with arbitrary data, VMI and non-VMI are compared in terms of their profit changes over time. Results: The numerical analysis shows that VMI results in greater overall profits for both manufacturer and retailer than non-VMI, while the manufacturer make a loss in the early stage of VMI implementation. This study also examines the impacts of certain conditional factors on the performance of VMI. Conclusions: This study supports the idea that VMI leads to manufacturer's initial loss but it brings greater profits to both manufacturer and retailer than non-VMI after all. In addition, the result of this study provides the managerial implications about the particular condition that allows VMI to achieve a significant financial performance improvement over non-VMI.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.248-274
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• 2015

This study discusses a contract to promote collection and recycling of used products in a green supply chain (GSC). A collection incentive contract is combined with a reward-penalty contract. The collection incentive contract for used products is made between a retailer and a manufacturer. The reward-penalty contract for recycling used products is made between a manufacturer and an external institution. A retailer pays an incentive for collecting used products from customers and delivers them to a manufacturer with a product order quantity under uncertainty in product demand. A manufacturer remanufactures products using recyclable parts with acceptable quality levels and covers a part of the retailer's incentive from the recycled parts by sharing the reward from an external institution. Product demand information is assumed as (i) the distribution is known (ii) mean and variance are known. Besides, the optimal decisions for product quantity, collection incentive of used products and lower limit of quality level for recyclable parts under decentralized integrated GSCs. The analysis numerically investigates how (1) contract for recycling activity, (ii) product demand information and (iii) quality of recyclable parts affect the optimal operation for each GSC. Supply chain coordination to shift IGSC is discussed by adopting Nash Bargaining solution.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2011

This study investigates impact of smoothed replenishment ordering policy on the performance measures such as lead time, order fulfillment ratio, and inventory cost. We consider a two-echelon supply chain: a single retailer orders using smoothed order up to replenishment policy and a manufacturer produces the retailer's orders on a make to order basis. Simulation result confirms that lead time from the manufacturer can be reduced by smoothed ordering policy as expected. However, smoothing orders may deteriorate the customer order fulfillment ratio and inventory cost in a retailer. We also observe that variance of manufacturing time contributes more than mean of manufacturing time to both order fulfillment ratio and inventory cost. Therefore, variability of upstream manufacturing time should be minimized.