Supply chains today routinely use third parties for many strategic activities, such as manufacturing, R&D, or software development. These activities often include relationship-specific investment on the part of the vendor, while final outcomes can be uncertain. Therefore, writing complete...

Supply chains today routinely use third parties for many strategic activities, such as manufacturing, R&D, or software development. These activities often include relationship-specific investment on the part of the vendor, while final outcomes can be uncertain. Therefore, writing complete...

In this paper, we develop a newsvendor model in which the retailer gives “free” gift cards to consumers who purchase a regularly priced product at the end of the selling season instead of discounting the product. The model is developed for a market with patient consumers. We derive the...