Three Essays on Psychological Distance in Supply Chains

Operations management research predominantly models humans as rational and self-interested, with the ability to optimise objectively. However, human decision-making typically deviates from prescribed profit-maximising behaviour. For instance, decision biases in supplier and retailer contracting can lead to lower profits for suppliers, due to preferences for a more equitable distribution of profits between supply chain partners. Supply chain decisions and strategies are ultimately crafted and implemented by managers who are influenced by contextual elements of the decision-making environment. This thesis focuses on contextual factors like lead times, supplier locations, social relationships, and probable disruptions, which all influence perceptions of psychological distances. Using controlled experiments, this thesis addresses the research question of whether psychological distances affect the supply chain managers’ decision making and if so, how? The first study evaluates how psychological distance impacts managers’ trade-offs between cost and sustainability that were accentuated by the pandemic. The second study explores the effect of naturally occurring social and spatial psychological distances in domestic and international collaborations. The third study examines the effects of temporal and hypothetical psychological distances on inventory orders and allocations when engaging in dual sourcing. Overall, this work establishes that psychological distances arising in supply chains significantly influences managerial decisions

Consumers\u27 Perceptions Towards Sustainability: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Sustainability has become a subject of increasing concern to academics and practitioners in recent years. Increasing consumer demand for socially responsible products encouraged supply chains to put increasing emphasis on sustainability. In adapting sustainability practices consumers play a very important role for supply chains. Thus this dissertation examines consumers’ perceptions towards sustainability practices. Although most previous research has examined environmental sustainability practices, the social dimension of sustainability has received little attention. This dissertation attempts to explore both environmental and social sustainability and their effects on consumer perceptions in different cultural contexts and price levels. Two scenario based experiments are utilized. Experiment One examines the effect of environmental sustainability practices on consumer behavior. Experiment Two examines the effect of social sustainability practices on consumer behavior. Data was collected from one individual and one collectivist country to explore if there was a culture effect. Social Exchange Theory (SET) is presented as the theoretical lens for this dissertation. Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is also discussed as a supporting theory. The findings suggest that high environmental sustainability or social sustainability and a low price strategy will lead to an increase in consumers’ commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty levels. The results also showed that high prices have a more negative effect on consumer satisfaction and consumer loyalty in collectivist countries

An Appraisal of Trade Marketing as a Tool in Managing Distribution Channels in MTN Nigeria

Production is not completed until goods and services get to the final consumer, in getting this goods and services across to the consumers, firms employ many channels of distribution. Hence, the traditional channel that involves the distributors and retailers require careful management by manufacturers and suppliers such that their goals and objectives will be aligned and this helps the manufacturer achieve their major objective of getting their goods across to the consumers through the channel. In the management of the channel – trade marketing is employed, that is why this study seeks to appraise the effectiveness of trade marketing in the management of distribution channel and how well this results into increased revenue generation using MTN Nigeria as a case study. The study uses primary data collected through the use of questionnaire which was analysed with simple percentage and ordinary least square with multiple variables. The study finds out that trade marketing activities contributes to increased revenue generation and also discovered that the use or non-use of retailers does not affect the survival of telecom firms due to the development and growth in information and communication technology which helps firm to reach out to their customers via other means different from retailers. The study concludes that telecom firms should balance budget allocation into trade marketing activities as well as other advertisement as a way of resonating their brand in consumer’s hearts

The role of retailers as channel captains in retail supply chain change: the example of Tesco

The large scale retailer with a strong retail brand and sufficient critical mass in the market place may reach a pivotal point in its development when the directors can address the question: “Does the company want to get directly involved in the functions of centralised buying, logistics and supply chain management?” This thesis takes one such company and expands in some detail about its growth towards excellence in the techniques of retail supply chain change. The evolution and critical decision moments provide an in depth case study for others to use as a benchmark. Its purpose is to examine the role of the retailer as a channel captain; a concept from an earlier marketing era, whose origins it reveals. It takes that learning together with contemporary supply chain thinking and examines real retail supply chain events in Tesco. The results of matching the new and old academic theory with practitioner events confirm that the channel captain is the retailer. It demonstrates that retailers can make the transition into that leadership position and apply supply chain management skills to competitive advantage. This can become a strategic tool both at national and international levels. The principles of this thesis could be used or applied in research in three areas: in depth with Tesco; in breadth, exporting expertise to other retailers; globally with retailers extending the operations internationally and suppliers seeking to trade with European retailers

Analysis of the Project Supply Chains: Coordination and Fair Allocation

This research investigates how project contracts can coordinate the supply chain between a project manager and contractor and if the solutions can be ensured as equitable. The main features of this type of supply chain are the trade-offs between the selection of a higher rate of resource consumption with a consequent higher cost to the contractor and a lower rate of resource consumption leading to later delivery and a reduction of the project-reward to the project manager. This broader problem could lead to a coordination problem for the overall supply chain. This research proposed a solution to this broader problem in two different scenarios: Take it or leave it scenario and negotiation scenario. Finally, the fair allocation of the risks and benefits and the related decision-making issues are addressed as one of the behavioural barriers to the supply chain coordination. The coordination issues in a take it or leave it scenario are addressed using time-based and fixed price project contracts using Stackelberg games. Models of coordination were proposed with time-based contracts, but the fixed price contracts failed to coordinate. The coordination problems in negotiation scenario are addressed with the Nash's bargaining, the Kalai Smorodinsky bargaining, and the utilitarian approach. A cost plus contract has been found to dominate the solutions over any cost sharing contract and fixed price contract for Nash's bargaining and Kalai Smorodinsky bargaining cases. Finally, the issues of fairness of allocation of risks and benefits as one of the challenges of supply chain coordination, have been investigated. The fixed price contracts were found to coordinate the supply chain under consideration alongside the time-based contracts if the members had fairness concern. Some of the key features of this research include the incorporation of various probability distributions for the project completion time and cost, the inclusion of various forms of risk preference, and addressing the challenges of fair allocation in project supply chains

Essays on Consumer Return Policy Design

Due to the ongoing and dramatic growth in the volume of consumer returns, retailers struggle with the trade-off in returns service strategies between implementing stricter return policies to lower operational costs and environmental footprint versus providing customers with lenient return policies to positively stimulate customers’ value perceptions and patronage intentions. This dissertation contributes to knowledge by providing theoretical and practical insights on managing this trade-off. In particular, the dissertation offers three essays on consumer return policy design. The first essay reviews and classifies the inter-disciplinary and multi-method research on consumer return policy design through a holistic conceptual framework and identifies relatively under-explored as well as unexplored research areas. The second essay investigates, through randomized experiments, how return policy leniency across five leniency levers available to retailers affects consumers’ purchase intentions and proposes a causal mechanism to explain these effects. The results suggest that monetary and exchange levers are the most effective levers in influencing purchase intentions, whereas time, scope, and effort levers are significantly less so. Further, the findings suggest that perceived service quality and perceived transaction costs in parallel and perceived service value in series mediate the effect of return policy leniency across the levers on purchase intentions. The third essay examines how restrictive changes to long-established lenient return policies impact consumer trust in retailers and the resultant favorable behavioral intentions, and how managerial transparency moderates this impact. Results from randomized experiments suggest that restrictive changes to long-established lenient return policies generally result in decreased consumer trust in the retailer and favorable behavioral intentions. This negative effect becomes stronger in the severity of the restriction. However, managerial transparency in the form of communicating the rationale for the change can help to mitigate this negative effect

23rd Recent Advances in Retailing & Services Science Conference, July 11-14, 2016, Edinburgh, Scotland:book of abstracts

This book includes the (edited) abstracts of the papers that will be presented at the 23rd Recent Advancesin Retailing and Services Science Conference, at the Carlton/Hilton hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 11-16, 2016.The aim of the conference is to bring together an international and multidisciplinary audience working ondifferent topics in retailing and consumer behavior research. Both completed work and work in progresswill be presented. This is reflected in the kind of papers that have been accepted for presentation