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The authors investigate the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with competing retailers.

Using a game-theoretic model, the authors build two discount frameworks and compare and analyze the effects of different discount schemes on the performance of supply chain members.

The authors find that the retail price (market demand) in the quantity discount scheme is always higher (lower) than that in the market share discount scheme. The authors also find that the retailers' preference for discount schemes is antithetical to the manufacturer's preference in most cases. However, under certain conditions, there will be a win-win situation where Pareto-optimization occurs between the manufacturer and retailers when they choose the same discount scheme.

On the one hand, the authors assume that the two retailers are symmetrical in market size and operation efficiency. It would be interesting to study the effect of different discount schemes on retailers when the retailers have different market sizes or operating efficiency. On the other hand, the authors study the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with one common manufacturer and two competing retailers. However, in practice, there exist other supply chain structures. Future research can examine the problem of choices of discount schemes in other different supply chain structures.

This paper help retailers and manufacturers to choose the best discount schemes.

This paper suggests that a high discount scale is not always beneficial (detrimental) to retailers (the manufacture).

The authors build two discount schemes (the quantity and the market share) in a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two retailers, and the authors focus on the effects of different discount schemes on the competition between two retailers. By comparing the two discount schemes, the authors study which discount scheme is the better choice for the manufacturer when facing competing retailers.

This study aims to examine the relationships between the different national culture dimensions presented by Hofstede and innovation data by country to analyze which characteristics of national culture dimensions contribute to the country becoming more innovative.

The study is characterized as descriptive and quantitative, using multiple linear regression equations as data analysis technique. To carry out the analysis, this study made use of secondary data from Hofstede’s national culture database, data on innovation indicators from the Global Innovation Index and population data from the World Bank database. The analysis comprises data from 2015 to 2018.

National culture affects innovation rates positively. The most favorable situation to boost innovation is when there is a low distance from power, high individualism, femininity characteristics, low aversion to uncertainty, long-term orientation and a higher level of indulgence.

The temporal analysis comprises a wider list of countries from all continents, which had not been considered in previous studies.

This study explores the characteristics of high-speed rail (HSR) and air transportation networks in China based on the weighted complex network approach. Previous related studies have largely implemented unweighted (binary) network analysis, or have constructed a weighted network, limited by unweighted centrality measures. This study applies weighted centrality measures (mean association [MA], triangle betweenness centrality [TBC], and weighted harmonic centrality [WHC]) to represent traffic dynamics in HSR and air transportation weighted networks, where nodes represent cities and links represent passenger traffic. The spatial distribution of centrality results is visualized by using ArcGIS 10.2. Moreover, we analyze the network robustness of HSR, air transportation, and multimodal networks by measuring weighted efficiency (WE) subjected to the highest weighted centrality node attacks. In the HSR network, centrality results show that cities with a higher MA are concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta; cities with a higher TBC are mostly provincial capitals or regional centers; and cities with a higher WHC are grouped in eastern and central regions. Furthermore, spatial differentiation of centrality results is found between HSR and air transportation networks. There is a little bit of difference in eastern cities; cities in the central region have complementary roles in HSR and air transportation networks, but air transport is still dominant in western cities. The robustness analysis results show that the multimodal network, which includes both airports and high-speed rail stations, has the best connectivity and shows robustness.

This paper discusses a case of truck sharing as an application of the sharing economy. This case study examines a real mixed feed company with multiple factories. In this company’s operation, bulk trucks located in a factory had not previously been shared for delivery with other factories to their pre-assigned customers of stock farms. Therefore, this paper suggests a new delivery system that facilitates truck-sharing and analyzes its effects on the transport cost and trucks’ CO₂ emissions. To this end, this paper develops vehicle routing models to represent the current delivery practice and the new truck-shared delivery (TSD). In addition, models are developed for a carbon control policy of an emission trading scheme (ETS) and the effects of the ETS on truck-sharing are investigated. Numerical analysis is conducted to identify the effects of the TSD and the carbon control policy and draw practical implications.

The immigrant entrepreneurship literature indicates that immigrant entrepreneurs reap numerous benefits from their co-ethnic communities℉ social capital. These benefits, however, often come at a price because scholars note the potential for this community social capital to impose limitations on the entrepreneurs. While the literature largely focuses on the benefits of social capital, there is no research on what motivates the immigrant entrepreneurs to engage with their co-ethnic community in terms of contributing to, and utilizing, their co-ethnic communities℉ social capital, and the consequences these may have on their enterprises. Addressing this gap in the literature is important in the development of successful immigrant enterprises. Thus, based on a model posited by Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993), we suggest that immigrant entrepreneurs℉ motivations will influence their use of, and contributions to, co-ethnic community social capital, impacting, in turn, business success. We contribute to both the immigrant entrepreneurship and social capital research through exploring how entrepreneurs℉ motives, with respect to their co-ethnic communities℉ social capital, influence business success.