Mouna Sebri and Georges Zaccour
The starting conjecture is that the market share of a brand in one category benefits from its performance in another category, and vice versa. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The starting conjecture is that the market share of a brand in one category benefits from its performance in another category, and vice versa. The purpose of this paper is to assess the umbrella-branding spillovers by investigating the presence of synergy effect between categories when a retailer and/or a manufacturer decide to adopt/use the same name for his products. In fact, besides the cross-category dependency due to substitutability or complementarity, products can also be linked through their brand name in presence of an umbrella-branding strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose an extended market-share model to account for the spillover effect at the brand level. The spillover is modeled to be generated by the brand's performance and not specific to marketing instruments, as done in the literature. They adopt a multiplicative competitive interaction (MCI) form for the attraction function. Based on aggregated data of two complementary oral-hygiene categories, the authors estimate the umbrella-branding spillover parameters using the iterate three-stage least squares (I3SLS) method. They contrast the results in three scenarios: no spillover, brand-constant spillover and brand-specific spillover.
Findings
The ensuing results indicate that umbrella-branding spillover is (i) significant and positive, i.e. the brand performance is boosted by its performance in a related category, through the so-called brand-attraction multiplier; (ii) asymmetric, i.e. the spillover is not equal in both directions; and associated to the market strength of each competing brand; (iii) variable across brands. The results show that not accounting for umbrella-branding spillover leads to misestimating the parameters and has a considerable impact on price-elasticities computation.
Research limitations/implications
Because store brands and some national brands exist in many categories, and thus because consumers make inferences when they face a large number of brands in different categories, spillover effects cannot be labelled as simply complementary or substitution-related. Future research may provide insight about the spillover phenomenon in a more general framework that would consider the spillover occurring between more than two categories.
Practical implications
Providing accurate assessment for umbrella-branding spillovers governing the competing brands, the results offer a relevant and straightforward method for decision makers to precisely assess the impact of a marketing effort in one category on the retailer's global performance. The findings provide better forecasts of market response in terms of sales and profit, within a cross-category perspective.
Originality/value
This study develops and estimates a market-share model with the aim of measuring brand-category spillover effects. The literature dealt with cross-category interactions in terms of substitutability or complementarity between the products offered in the two or more categories under investigation. Here, the focal point (and contribution) of the authors is the link at the brand level. Indeed, the authors only require that a minimum of one brand is offered in at least two of the categories of interest. Further, the spillover considered is not specific to marketing instruments, but is generated by the brand performance (attraction or market share), which is the result of both the firms marketing-mix choice and competitors marketing policies.
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This paper attempts to develop a simple, static model of tax administration that is capable of explaining the widespread collusive petty tax administration corruption observed in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper attempts to develop a simple, static model of tax administration that is capable of explaining the widespread collusive petty tax administration corruption observed in developing countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper utilizes a positivist research framework and adopts a theoretical method of analysis, although secondary data will also be mentioned to support theoretical arguments whenever it is appropriate to do so.
Findings
A high rate of collusive tax corruption is inevitable in developing countries.
Research limitations/implications
The model is static and needs to be extended into a dynamic model.
Practical implications
Traditional enforcement tools such as higher audits or a higher penalty regime against tax evasion do not work. Tax simplification can lessen the incidence of tax corruption.
Social implications
Fighting tax corruption requires significant changes in the attitudes of taxpayers and tax auditors.
Originality/value
This paper combines the literature on Kantian economics and tax compliance in an innovative fashion.
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This paper is a dedication to Professor Ngo Van Long who introduced the idea of Kant–Nash equilibrium. The author extends this analysis to the study of adult and child labor…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is a dedication to Professor Ngo Van Long who introduced the idea of Kant–Nash equilibrium. The author extends this analysis to the study of adult and child labor markets.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a game theoretic analysis of the market for adult and child workers when some firms behave in the neoclassical Nashian way and some firms follow a Kantian social norm.
Findings
The presence of Kantian firms in the output market in addition to Nashian lowers industry output and labor demand. This raises the possibility that Kantian behavior in the output market could lower wages sufficiently and increase the incidence of child labor. If firms engage in Kantian behavior in the labor market by not hiring child workers, adult wage rises but could lower child wage as children if they work can only work for Nashian firms. When labor demand is sufficiently high, more Kantians could raise adult wage above subsistence and eliminate child labor supply.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to apply Kant–Nash equilibrium to the labor market. The result that Kantian behavior could have an unintended negative spillover effect in other markets is new. The paper keeps alive the ideas of Professor Long, which hopefully will stimulate further work and build on his ideas.
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Tsuyoshi Shinozaki, Makoto Tawada and Mitsuyoshi Yanagihara
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether a Nash equilibrium of a two-country trading economy is symmetry-breaking or not.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether a Nash equilibrium of a two-country trading economy is symmetry-breaking or not.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach to tackle this topic is a theoretical treatment by the general equilibrium trade theory and game theory.
Findings
If each government's domestic policy serving private production is diminishing to the private production scale, the Nash equilibrium is not symmetry-breaking.
Originality/value
In the existing study of Chatterjee (2017), a similar result is derived by focusing on the properties of each country's GDP function. The authors, however, consider an economy where each country's PPF is strictly concave and show that the Nash equilibrium uniquely exists and this equilibrium is symmetry.
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Suyuan Wang, Huaming Song, Hongfu Huang and Qiang Huang
This paper explores how the manufacturer’s strategic choice (acquisition or investment) impacts product quality in a supply chain comprising two complementary suppliers and a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores how the manufacturer’s strategic choice (acquisition or investment) impacts product quality in a supply chain comprising two complementary suppliers and a common manufacturer.
Design/methodology/approach
The manufacturer faces six strategic choices to improve product quality: acquiring or investing in the high-capable supplier, the low-capable supplier, or both. As the Stackelberg leader, the manufacturer determines which strategy is adopted, while suppliers are separately responsible for components’ quality and wholesale prices. The authors use game theory and calculate the model with Mathematica.
Findings
The authors develop analytical models to analyze how acquisition costs, investment proportions, component importance and quality improvement coefficients influence decision-makers. The results show that the highest quality may not benefit the manufacturer. Investing in or acquiring a low-capable supplier is better than a high-capable supplier under certain conditions. If the gaps between two suppliers’ quality improvement coefficients and the importance of two components are dramatic, the manufacturer should choose an investment strategy.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the complementary supply chain management by comparing two kinds of strategies-acquisition and investment, with a high-capable supplier and a low-capable supplier.
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Xiaogang Cao, Jing Yuan, Hui Wen and Cuiwei Zhang
Different information sharing mechanisms and online platform information sharing to different charging models are compared and analyzed.
Abstract
Purpose
Different information sharing mechanisms and online platform information sharing to different charging models are compared and analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the Stackelberg game model to study the demand information sharing and pricing decisions.
Findings
The results show that: (1) the retailer's pricing strategy is the highest when both of them obtain information, while the manufacturer's pricing strategy is affected by the related attributes of different products, such as the sensitivity of consumers to product prices; (2) in the online platform sales model, the demand information data sharing owned by the online platform can bring more expected profits to the whole supply chain and the members of the supply chain, and the higher the accuracy of the information, the higher the expected profit; (3) when the cost of obtaining demand information is zero, that is, the online platform shares the information data about market demand free of charge, the retailer and manufacturer tend to obtain information; (4) for the online platform, charging a certain fee can achieve higher expected profits than free sharing.
Originality/value
Based on the single platform online sales model, this paper uses the Stackelberg game model to study the demand information sharing and pricing decision of a manufacturer and a retailer selling products through the same online platform.
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Hanieh Shambayati, Mohsen Shafiei Nikabadi, Seyed Mohammad Ali Khatami Firouzabadi, Mohammad Rahmanimanesh and Sara Saberi
Supply chains (SCs) have been growingly virtualized in response to the market challenges and opportunities that are presented by new and cost-effective internet-based technologies…
Abstract
Purpose
Supply chains (SCs) have been growingly virtualized in response to the market challenges and opportunities that are presented by new and cost-effective internet-based technologies today. This paper designed a virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) network based on multiperiod, multiproduct and by using the Internet of Things (IoT). The purpose of the paper is the optimization of the VCLSC network.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed model considers the maximization of profit. For this purpose, costs related to virtualization such as security, energy consumption, recall and IoT facilities along with the usual costs of the SC are considered in the model. Due to real-world demand fluctuations, in this model, demand is considered fuzzy. Finally, the problem is solved using the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis on the main parameters of the model are used to describe the importance and applicability of the developed model.
Findings
The findings showed that the Firefly algorithm performed better and identified more profit for the SC in each period. Also, the results of the sensitivity analysis using the IoT in a VCLSC showed that the profit of the virtual supply chain (VSC) is higher compared to not using IoT due to tracking defective parts and identifying reversible products. In proposed model, chain members can help improve chain operations by tracking raw materials and products, delivering products faster and with higher quality to customers, bringing a new level of SC efficiency to industries. As a result, VSCs can be controlled, programmed and optimized remotely over the Internet based on virtual objects rather than direct observation.
Originality/value
There are limited researches on designing and optimizing the VCLSC network. This study is one of the first studies that optimize the VSC networks considering minimization of virtual costs and maximization of profits. In most researches, the theory of VSC and its advantages have been described, while in this research, mathematical optimization and modeling of the VSC have been done, and it has been tried to apply SC virtualization using the IoT. Considering virtual costs in VSC optimization is another originality of this research. Also, considering the uncertainty in the SC brings the issue closer to the real world. In this study, virtualization costs including security, recall and energy consumption in SC optimization are considered.
Highlights
Investigates the role of IoT for virtual supply chain profit optimization and mathematical optimization of virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) based on multiperiod, multiproduct with emphasis on using the IoT under uncertainty.
Considering the most important costs of virtualization of supply chain include: cost of IoT information security, cost of IoT energy consumption, cost of recall the production department, cost of IoT facilities.
Selection of the optimal suppliers in each period and determination of the price of each returned product in virtual supply chain.
Solving and validating the proposed model with two meta-heuristic algorithms (the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm).
Investigates the role of IoT for virtual supply chain profit optimization and mathematical optimization of virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) based on multiperiod, multiproduct with emphasis on using the IoT under uncertainty.
Considering the most important costs of virtualization of supply chain include: cost of IoT information security, cost of IoT energy consumption, cost of recall the production department, cost of IoT facilities.
Selection of the optimal suppliers in each period and determination of the price of each returned product in virtual supply chain.
Solving and validating the proposed model with two meta-heuristic algorithms (the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm).