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The purpose of this paper is to figure out how authoritarian regimes conduct crisis management through application of technology, institutions and people.

By means of a literature review, this paper briefly reviews the digital governance of authoritarianism and its approach in crisis management. Then, a case study with empirical analysis is conducted to explain how an authoritarian regime would perceive and manage crises in the digital era.

China’s response towards COVID-19 was mainly based on digitalised grid management. Government’s perception of the crisis directly influences directions of institutions, while technology is developed, applied and iterated with the needs of institutions, rather than the public interests. And for the general public, the level of trust in the government directly affects the acceptance of technology.

Previous studies on crisis management of authoritarian governments in the digital era have mostly been conducted from a techno-ethical perspective. However, this paper verifies that the use of technology in crisis management requires involvement of institutions and public.

The paper investigates firms' optimal pricing policies and green strategies in a dynamic green supply chain with consideration of different retail service strategies. The purpose of the paper is to address the following research questions: (1) What are the optimal pricing policies and green strategies of the dynamic decentralized supply chain with the competitive or supportive retail service? (2) How does the dynamic consumer's perception of green product affect these equilibrium solutions?

The paper establishes the dynamic game models and then derives a firm's instantaneous and steady-state feedback equilibrium solutions in three scenarios as follows: (1) the integrated supply chain; (2) the decentralized supply chain with competitive retail service and (3) the decentralized supply chain with supportive retail service. Finally, we conduct numerical analyses to compare the firm's instantaneous and steady-state equilibrium solutions and profit in the three scenarios.

The theoretical and numerical analysis results suggest that the supportive retail service is less inefficient than the competitive retail service in the decentralized supply chain and that the types of retail service have no influence on the green strategy. Moreover, a firm's myopia leads to lowering the greenness degree, retail service level and severe price competition, resulting in economic losses. Consumers’ initial perception of greenness degree determines whether the retailer should adopt the skimming pricing strategy or penetration pricing strategy. Furthermore, only when consumers’ perception of greenness degree is higher than a threshold, will the manufacturer produce green product with positive greenness degree.

This is one of few studies on the effect of different types of retail service on horizontal competition in green supply chain. The extension of the static study by adopting differential game approaches provides researchers with a deeper understanding of the application of retail service in green supply chain.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the applicable conditions for coatings with different element contents. Surface coating on existed tool material is an effective way to improve the cutting tool properties in extremely adverse machining conditions. These coatings are generally non-metering compounds. Each coating with a certain element ratio has a specific application condition, and the relationship between element contents and performance should be defined.

(Zr, Ti)N hard coatings with different element contents were deposited on cemented carbide. The ball-on-disk method reciprocating sliding wear tests against 40Cr hardened steel were carried out. This paper was focused on analysis of the friction and wear behaviors of these (Zr, Ti)N coatings with different element contents.

The results indicated that atomic ratio of Zr and Ti was the main factor that decided the friction coefficients. The friction coefficient and wear rate showed a gradual downward trend at 10 N with the increase of Zr content. The wear rate was the smallest at the atomic percentage of nitrogen 0.466. If the lattice distortion of the coatings gets too severe, the coatings would have a high wear rate.

The optimal application conditions of the coatings were defined, and this was important for customized design or choice of the coatings under different cutting parameters.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of wholesale price discrimination by a manufacturer in a retailer–e-tailer dual-channel supply chain for different product categories based on their online channel preference.

This paper considers a dual-channel supply chain comprising of a retailer and an e-tailer engaged in competition. Game-theoretic models are developed to model the competition between the retailer and e-tailer and to derive their optimal price, optimal order quantity and optimal profit under (1) equal wholesale price strategy and (2) discriminatory wholesale price strategy. Further, a numerical example was employed to quantify the results and to capture the variation with respect to online channel preference of the product.

It is beneficial for the manufacturer to adopt a discriminatory wholesale price strategy for products having both high online channel preference and low online channel preference. However, equal wholesale price strategy is beneficial for the e-tailer and the retailer in the case of products having high online channel preference and in the case of products having low online channel preference, respectively.

The study helps the manufacturers to maximize their profit by adopting the right wholesale price strategy considering the online channel preference of the product when the manufacturers are supplying to heterogeneous retailers.

There is scant literature on the wholesale price strategy of the manufacturer considering the heterogeneous downstream retailers. This paper contributes the literature by bridging this gap. In addition, the study establishes a link between the wholesale price strategy and online channel preference of the product.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how wind farms attract wind turbine manufacturers to get involved in wind turbines’ maintenance service with revenue sharing contract of bundled service under which the background of operation and maintenance (O&M) aftermarket of wind turbine exists. The authors also try to extend the results to the application of product plus service business mode on large-scale equipment O&M service. At present, Chinese wind power industry is suffering from production capacity redundancy. The profit levels for both wind farm and wind turbine manufacturers are relatively low. It is significant for Chinese wind power industry development to coordinate the supply chain of wind power in order to reduce O&M costs and increase revenues.

The present paper discusses product plus aftermarket service contract design on the background of closed-loop product service chain and uncertain equipment demand using revenue sharing contract model.

If centralized decision making is assumed, the authors find that the wind turbine order increases as the aftermarket service effort level and aftermarket service profit increase; aftermarket service effort level is positively correlative to the service efficiency. On the other hand, if decentralized decision making is assumed, the wind turbine order increases as share of the aftermarket service chain by manufacturer to wind farm increases and share of product supply chain by wind farm to manufacturer decreases. The optimal effort level of wind farm increases as the share of aftermarket service chain increases while the optimal effort level of the manufacturer is a concave function of share of aftermarket service chain if service quality linear correlates with effort level. Meanwhile, the authors find that the revenues of the product supply chain and aftermarket service chain have a concave relationship. This relationship is not affected by the format of relationship between service quality and effort level (linear or exponential).

The results could potentially be used to provide the wind turbine manufacturer with a greater profit space and satisfy wind farm’s equipment maintenance demand at the same time. It can also guide the practice of revenue sharing in the aftermarket service and manufacturing servitization.

In this model, the authors assumed that both the forward revenue sharing of power generation by wind farm to manufacturer and the backward revenue sharing of maintenance service by the manufacturer to wind farm exist in closed-loop product service chain. Then the authors discussed channel coordination of such cross-revenue sharing contract.

This study conducts a systematic literature review of e-tail product returns research. E-tail product returns are essentially acquisition of products that have been sold through purely online or brick-and-click channels and then returned by consumer to business.

Using a systematic literature review protocol, we identified 75 peer-reviewed articles on e-tail product returns, conducted bibliometric analysis and content analysis of the articles and summarised our findings.

The findings reveal that the subject of e-tail returns is a new research area; academics have started to investigate several aspects of e-tail returns through different research methodologies and theoretical foundations. Further research is required in leading e-commerce countries and on key areas such as omni-channel returns management, customer satisfaction and service, the impact of resources such as people skills, the benefits of technology and IT systems in managing e-tail returns.

The study offers a summative account of current e-tail knowledge areas, which can serve as a reference guide for e-tailers to develop strategies for more efficient and competitive product returns.

This study contributes theoretically by developing clusters of key themes or knowledge areas about e-tail returns. It also provides a conceptual framework for e-tail returns management, which can be used as a springboard for further empirical research.

The purposes of this paper is to propose a customer returns model in a dual-channel supply chain where a customer can return the purchased product to the retailer or the manufacturer and obtain an equilibrium of selling prices and refund prices and the optimal profit when considering customer returns in the centralized and decentralized dual-channel supply chain.

This paper mainly uses the game theory technique to analyze the problem. The manufacturer and the retailer are vertically integrated in the traditional channel, and the results of the centralized dual-channel supply chain are obtained. Then, the Stackelberg game was adopted to analyze the decentralized dual-channel supply chain. Finally, the detailed numerical simulation is proposed to obtain straight-forward insights for the industrial managers.

The mathematic analysis used shows that the main findings of this paper are: in the centralized scenario, the retailer and the manufacturer will charge higher selling prices when they offer return policy, and the demand for each channel increases, which results in higher profit; and the price and refund price of the direct channel in the centralized and decentralized dual-channel are the same, respectively.

Most previous literatures highlight that return policy plays an important role in supply chain which considering one channel. But there is no study on the customer return policy in dual-channel supply chain. This paper is a further step to model the effects of customer returns policy on the pricing policy and optimize the profits in a dual-channel supply chain. This paper analyzes the pricing and refund strategies and gets an equilibrium in the centralized and decentralized dual-channel supply chain scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help the manufacturers to find the optimal decisions regarding the choice of channel member for information sharing.

A game‐theoretical model plus Bayesian forecasting is developed to determine the optimal decisions for the manufacturer.

The results show that the optimal strategy for the manufacturer is to engage in information sharing with one small retailer exclusively, such that the manufacturer can gain the most benefit from information sharing arrangement in a marketing channel with a dominant retailer.

The present study is analyzed by a theoretical model. Future research can explore the same study by collecting data to engage in an empirical test.

This paper provides a useful model framework and pricing strategy for upstream manufacturers who are engaging or planning to engage in information sharing with their retailers.

This paper provides practical and solid advice and examples demonstrating the optimal decisions regarding the choice of channel member for information sharing to best benefit of the manufacturer.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured literature review using advanced bibliometric tools to understand the existing knowledge base, understand the trends in omni-channel (OC) research and identify emerging research topics.

More than 500 articles selected through a keyword combination search from reputed databases of peer-reviewed academic sources from period 2009–19 are analyzed for the purposes of this study. The study first presents an exploratory analysis to determine influential authors, sources and regions, among other key aspects. Second, several network analyses including co-citation and dynamic co-citation network analyses are conducted to identify themes. These allow identifying research clusters and emerging research topics algorithmically. Both centrality and modularity-based clustering are employed. A content analysis of the most influential groups within OC literature for each cluster is included.

The findings of this paper make unique contributions by using advanced tools from network analysis along with the standard bibliometric analysis tools to explore the current status of OC research, identify existing themes and the guidance for potential areas of future research interest in OC.

This research provides a comprehensive view of the range of topics of importance that have been discussed in the literature of OC management. These research trends can serve as a quick guide to researchers and practitioners to improve decision making and also develop strategies.

The paper employs advanced tools for the first time to review the literature of OC retailing. The sophisticated tools include co-citation and dynamic co-citation network analysis.

After the occurrence of natural disasters, the rapid and accurate delivery of geo-afforestation is the key to emergency rescue and is the fundamental solution to the “last mile” problem. It provides technical support for the territorial rapid and accurate delivery. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Through literature and theoretical research, combined with the research experience of scholars, the qualitative research method is adopted. The paper establishes a three-dimensional analysis framework, including disaster predictability, resource availability and transport accessibility, and proposes the integrated delivery triangular technical framework, including integrated monitoring analysis, the territorial virtual public storage and transportation.

Based on the analysis of the factors affecting the effectiveness of emergency delivery, the paper establishes a three-dimensional analysis framework, including disaster predictability, resource availability and transport accessibility, and proposes the integrated delivery triangular technical framework, including integrated monitoring analysis, the territorial virtual public storage and transportation. The triangular technical characteristics and functions of emergency delivery are studied, providing theoretical basis and technical support for effective rescue and emergency planning.

The territorial emergency delivery refers to the process of rapid and accurate delivery without relying on external territorial supplies. The paper establishes a three-dimensional analysis framework, including disaster predictability, resource availability and transport accessibility, and proposes the integrated delivery triangular technical framework, including integrated monitoring analysis, the territorial virtual public storage and transportation.