The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of competitive or exclusive retailers and assigning it to a manufacturer increases the value of a supply chain especially for goods whose demand is highly volatile. This is because doing so solves incentive distortions that arise...

The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of retailers and assigning it to an intermediary increases the value of a supply chain when demand volatility is high. This is because an intermediary can help solve two incentive problems associated with retailers' inventory control...

The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of competitive of exclusive retailers and assigning it to a manufacturer increases the value of a supply chain especially for goods whose demand is highly volatile. This is because doing so solves incentive distortions that arise...

This paper examines whether ownership and increased competitive pressure affect food retailers’ market power, analysing whether all actors involved in the food supply chain deviate from the pricing behaviour that exists under perfect competition. A method proposed by Roeger (1995) is used to...

Managing inventories is difficult for a seller who faces uncertainty about future demand for its products. Unexpectedly low demand for a product leads to wasted investment in inventory and subsequent markdowns. Conversely, unexpectedly high demand leads to stockouts and the resulting opportunity...

Recent reviews of the Operations Management research literature have shown a surprising little shift towards empirical methodologies from traditional modeling solution methods. In addition, there is generally a lack of empirical testing and validation of manufacturing strategies. Coupled to this...

The importance of CSR has recently increased in all economic sectors. Particularly in the retail sector, large international retailers are investing heavily to cope with the ethical demands of consumers and increase their own awareness of CSR issues. Key international retailers have begun to...

By exploiting the uneven consolidation in the retail sector over the past few years we find that Chinese and other LDC imports are disproportionately sold by the largest retail firms. Smaller retailers sell almost as many imports but they are more likely to import from high-cost source...

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of a set of logistics activities on firm's performance. To reach this, a performance measurement system is proposed. The logistics activities studied are the ones related with warehousing, that is, inventory control, handling, packaging,...

This paper introduces a new coordinating mechanism for a two-echelon service chain with a single service retailer and multiple suppliers. The retailer sells a bundled product with perishable demand to the end customer. Prior to the selling season, suppliers must make components available to the...