Industry 4.0 (I4.0) Based Virtual Organization Model for the Coordination of Sustainable Textile Supply Chain

The lack of attention on the forward and backward supply chain issues, i.e., the transparency between supply chain agents, information sharing, resource deployment, workforce knowledge, waste reduction, cost efficiency, and resource management are the major problems of textile supply chain. The coordination of forward and backward supply chain becomes difficult due to the players\u27 self-interest and firmographics. It becomes much complicated when we consider the triple bottom line of sustainability (TBLS) in the supply chain. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an Industry 4.0 (I4.0) based virtual organization model for the coordination of the forward and backward supply chain. The results obtained through virtual organization model are also compared with the centralized supply chain and traditional cost-sharing contract. The results reveal that virtual organization model can perform better than the price only contract and it will be help firms in achieving greater sustainability with respect to traditional contract mechanisms

Two‐period supply chain coordination strategies with ambidextrous sustainable innovations

This study considers a manufacturer with ambidextrous sustainable innovation capability selling products in environmentally conscious market through an independent retailer in a two‐period game setting. We design a two‐period game theoretic and dyadic supply chain (SC) model considering exploitative and exploratory nature of environmental innovations. We study five different contract types, namely, wholesale price contract, vertical Nash game structure, cost sharing contract, revenue sharing contract and two‐part tariff contract. We demonstrate the impact of market sensitivity towards sustainable innovation and cost parameters on optimal level of decision parameters. The equilibrium results reveal that a suitably designed two‐part tariff contract can be used to achieve coordination in a fragmented SC. The equilibrium results assist managers to optimise the SC based on the two‐period contract model. The results obtained in this study can help the decision‐makers to take decisions on investment in the ambidextrous sustainable innovation under different types of contract structures

Exit Strategies for COVID 19: An ISM and MICMAC approach

COVID 19 pandemic is the worst crisis that mankind has seen since World War-II. It has exposed glaring loopholes in the healthcare system and led to a global health crisis. In absence of any specific treatment or vaccine, countries began to enforce strict lockdown measures leading to a complete shutdown of economic activities. The purpose of this study is to identify key exit strategies that can be implemented to mitigate the impacts of COVID 19. Identification and categorisation of parameters have been done using multi criterion decision making tool of Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and MICMAC analysis. The study highlights a classification of key strategies based on their driving power and dependence which may enable Government to strengthen the disease surveillance system and effectively reduce the impact of the disease. The findings of the study suggest that Environmental Sustainability and Human Well-being; Online Awareness and Capacity Building Programme; Graded Surveillance- Targeted Restrictions and Stricter norms for Inter-State Mobility; and Harmonization between Centre, State and Local Authorities are the most important strategies that needs to be factored in while planning for the post lockdown economic recovery. Thus, the study can assist the government in devising exit strategies while framing the pandemic response plan

Food waste management in the retail sector: challenges that hinder transition to circular economy

The retail sector is one of the growing sectors all over the world. As the sector grows, the amount of food waste generated increases, and waste management becomes more complicated day by day. The amount of waste produced, especially in the food retail sector, shows how much waste management policies should be planned. However, waste management policies cannot be carried out effectively in the food retail sector, especially in emerging economies. Since waste management is not well planned, it faces many difficulties in recycling activities. For this purpose, the study aims to investigate the challenges encountered in the inability to evaluate food wastes in the retail sector within the framework of circular economy to highlight retailer markets to have effective waste management policies. For this reason, 16 challenges of food waste management were listed, and the relations of these challenges with each other were analyzed with the fuzzy TISM method. As a result of the study, challenges are determined as the most crucial issues for food waste management in the retail sector. As managerial and policy implications, suggestions are made on the necessity of new policies, the usability of Industry 4.0 technologies for the problem, i.e. in the retail sector

Roles of reciprocity and fairness concerns in airline-airport systems with environmental considerations

Operations of airports and airlines are highly inter-dependent. Over the past decades, we have witnessed all kinds of alliances and coordination between airports and airlines. The observed industrial practices uncover that airports reward their airline partners with aligned objectives such as those in environmental sustainability, thereby displaying the positive reciprocity behaviors. However, the airport's preferential treatment towards a particular airline may induce the feeling of unfairness to the other airlines, leading to non-trivial peer-induced fairness concerns. In this paper, by building game-theoretic mathematical models, we analytically explore the impacts of reciprocity and fairness concerns on environmental sustainability in a single-airport two-airlines system. Our analysis highlights the importance of the cardinal relationship between an airport and airline(s) and shows that (i) a higher level of reciprocity of airport towards an airline helps improve the greening level, (ii) the presence of peer-induced fairness concern yields a lower revenue-sharing fraction of the fairness concerned airline, and (iii) improving the passengers’ environmental awareness is favorable for enhancing the environmental sustainability. To enhance research rigor, we examine various extended models. We show that the theoretical findings derived in the main model remain robust in the extensions

Immediate return in circular economy:Business to consumer product return information sharing framework to support sustainable manufacturing in small and medium enterprises

SME manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment seem to have high e-waste levels, which is inhibiting SMEs manufacturers in becoming more sustainable. On the other hand, consumers play a major role in enabling the SMEs manufacturers to achieve their sustainability targets as they are responsible for returning their e-waste back to SMEs. Based on the concepts of social marketing theory, this paper aims to examine the type of information that influences consumers’ intention to immediately return their e-waste back to SME manufacturers. A conceptual framework is developed and tested through a survey questionnaire to 394 Malaysian consumers. The relationship of the proposed types of information and information presentation towards consumers’ immediate return attitude, as well as environmental motivation and environmental knowledge as the moderators in consumers’ segmentation are tested. The findings suggest that specific type of return information and message framing have a positive effect on Immediate Return Intention