Optimal Inter-Organization Control of Collaborative Advertising with Myopic and Far-Sighted Behaviors.

This paper investigates the optimal inter-organization control of collaborative advertising considering the myopic and far-sighted behaviors. Taking a two-echelon supply chain as an example, four kinds of differential game models including myopic Stackelberg game, far-sighted Stackelberg game, myopic cooperative game and far-sighted cooperative game are studied. The results show that the optimal advertising efforts of both manufacturer and retailer in the myopic situation decrease with time. But they remain constant in the far-sighted situation. The Pareto improvement applies to both game players from the non-cooperative game to the cooperative game. The numerical analyses are conducted to further investigate the theoretical results and to guide the inter-organization control of collaborative advertising in practice.

Optimal control of carbon emission reduction strategies in supply chain with wholesale price and consignment contract.

To further reduce carbon emissions, supply chain members implement the low-carbon production process and use varieties of contracts to coordinate the channel. Considering the effect of emission reduction, this paper studies a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. Two supply chain members dedicate to maximize profits by reducing their products' carbon emissions under two different contracts: the wholesale price contract and the consignment contract. The Stackelberg differential game is used, and the optimal strategies of emission reduction effort, wholesale, and retail price in the two situations are studied. The results show that the Pareto improvement for the whole supply chain can be reached under the consignment contract. However, the specific impacts on the retailer and the manufacturer are different. When consumers have a higher level of environmental awareness, the retailer tends to decrease her proportion of sales revenue under the consignment contract. At that time, choosing the wholesale price contract is more favorable for the retailer. However, as the retailer's proportion of sales revenue becomes lower, the proportion of revenue belonging to the manufacturer will increase. It would be better for the manufacturer to choose the consignment contract.

Research on energy efficiency improvement in a supply chain with discontinuous market demand.

In many countries, products are divided into several grades according to their energy efficiencies by the government. It leads to the discontinuous market demand for the products with different governmental energy efficiency certifications and further influences the relevant strategies of firms. Considering both increasing consumer environmental awareness and strict governmental grading standard, this paper develops a Stackelberg differential game between a manufacturer and a retailer. The optimal pricing strategies and the energy efficiency efforts are studied, and the influences of discontinuous market demand on those optimal strategies are discussed. The results show that the governmental grading standard has an important boosting impact on the energy efficiency level of products. When the product's energy efficiency level is lower than the governmental standard, the manufacturer will make great efforts on energy efficiency improvement. It would be beneficial for both the manufacturer and the retailer to use penetration pricing strategy during this period. Once the governmental standard is met, the manufacturer will reduce his effort significantly. At this time, taking the skimming pricing strategy is beneficial for both the manufacturer and the retailer. Moreover, a higher governmental standard and a larger consumers' preference difference can motivate the manufacturer to work harder to improve energy efficiency. They also lead to a higher price after the product is certified as the high energy efficiency product by the government.