Samira Ebrahimi

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed major shortcomings in healthcare data systems worldwide, particularly the need for accessible and transparent data sharing. In Iran, these shortcomings were particularly visible due to the lack of a structured open data network in the healthcare sector. Hence, this study addresses the barriers to open ...

This study contributes to the literature by introducing the role of “location information sharing strategy” in optimizing the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) performance. In the investigated CLSC, one manufacturer collects the used products through two collectors. The collectors may face collection disruptions and adopt the location information sharing strategy to overcome the disruptions. More precisely, the collector who faces disruption shares the customers’ location information with its rival to collect the used products. On the other hand, the manufacturer invests in the corporate social responsibility effort, which has bilateral effects on the forward and reverse flows. The products are sold through online and retail channels. The problem is first formulated in decentralized and centralized settings. Afterward, a coordination mechanism is developed to maximize profitability. The data from the case study is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed structures. The results indicate that the developed contract improves profitability and sustainability. Moreover, it is shown that the location information sharing strategy can be an efficient strategy for managers to overcome collection disruptions.

In supply chain (SC) context, many SC members make sustainability effort not only to help the environment but also promote the market demand. Under such a situation, effective strategies should be adopted to coordinate the members’ sustainability decisions such as carbon emission reduction and green effort decisions. This article makes contributions to the literature on SC coordination by proposing a novel model for coordinating sustainable supply chain (SSC) under competition. In this investigation, a manufacturer invests to reduce the carbon emissions and two retailers compete on investing in the green effort. Firstly, the profit of SSC members and optimal decisions are determined under the decentralised and centralised systems. Then, a three-party compensation-based contract is proposed for coordinating the SSC decisions and a Nash bargaining model is proposed to fairly share the surplus profit. The results indicate that the proposed contract not only improves the whole SSC profit and its members compared to the decentralised system, but also improves the whole SSC performance regarding sustainability. Therefore, the coordination contract is applicable and efficient from both economic and sustainability viewpoints.