Two innovative financing schemes have emerged in recent years to enable suppliers to obtain financing for production. The first, purchase order financing (POF), allows financial institutions to offer loans to suppliers by considering the value of purchase orders issued by reputable buyers. Under...

To avoid inventory risks, manufacturers often place rush orders with suppliers only after they receive firm orders from their customers (retailers). Rush orders are costly to both parties because the supplier incurs higher production costs. We consider a situation where the supplier's production...

Many social enterprises and some companies have developed supply chains with the poor as suppliers or distributors to alleviate poverty and to create revenues for themselves. Such supply chains have created new research opportunities because they raise issues fundamentally different from those...