Tsan-Ming Choi

University of Liverpool | UoL · Centre for Supply Chain Research

The last decade has witnessed a sharp rising trend in environmental awareness and protection in China. Green supply chain management (GSCM) has been regarded as an effective tool in China for mitigating the negative effects that firms have on the environment. However, the extent to which GSCM pressures influence GSCM practices, and whether and how...

To retain old customers and promote sales, firms offer trade-in programs in which consumers bring in an old product and receive a trade-in rebate when buying a new one. However, after buying the new product, the consumer who has traded in (the "trade-in consumer") may return the new product and claim a refund for it if she/he is not satisfied with...

In the Industry 4.0 era, automation and data analytics emerge as the major forces to enhance efficiency in operations management (OM). Disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, blockchain, 3D printing, 5G and Internet-of-Thing (IoT), digital twins, and augmented reality (AR), are widely applied. They potentially will...

E-commerce supply chains and their members face risks from cyber-attacks. Consumers who purchase goods online also risk having their private information stolen. Thus, businesses are investing to improve cyber-security at a non-trivial cost. In this paper, we conduct a Stackelberg game theoretical analysis. In the basic model, we first derive the eq...

In recent years, research on supply chain coordination (SCC) with risk-averse agents has received much attention. Previous studies are primarily concerned with the coordination of a single-manufacturer-single-retailer supply chain using different definitions of SCC, and what is lacking is a comprehensive analysis of the achievability of SCC. We pro...

In retail operations, free-sample-trial (FST) and product return with money-back-guarantee (MBG) both serve as important strategies to reduce consumers’ worries and valuation uncertainty. This paper is the first one which analytically examines when and whether an online retailer should provide both strategies simultaneously, and when one strategy o...

Many governments worldwide offer various types of consumer‐specific subsidy programs, such as a trade‐in subsidy (TS) program that targets existing consumers only, a consumption subsidy (CS) program that covers both new and existing consumers with undifferentiated subsidy levels, or a mixed subsidy (MS) program that targets the two consumer segment...

Global pandemics restrict long‐haul mobility and international trade. To restore air traffic, a policy named “travel bubble” was implemented during the recent COVID‐19 pandemic, which seeks to re‐establish air connections among specific countries by permitting unrestricted passenger travel without mandatory quarantine upon arrival. However, travel...

We investigate a supply chain (SC) that is composed of a manufacturer and a live broadcasting platform, and examine whether the latter should adopt artificial intelligence (AI) considering sales effort. We consider several important factors that affect the SC partners’ decision-making including live broadcasting power, consumer expectations of the...

Although some prior studies have examined the optimal trade-in providers in supply chains, the impacts of alternative online selling models like reselling and agency selling that are widely adopted in the e-commerce environment are under-explored. Traditionally, both the manufacturer and retailer have incentives to offer trade-in programs to consum...

The highly pollution-intensive fashion industry requires manufacturers to do substantial sustainable practices over time. Concurrently, customers’ environmental awareness challenges manufacturers to balance sustainability efforts with profitability and meet customers’ evolving inclinations. Prior literature has primarily considered customers’ prefe...

In The wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world seems to have jumped off the hinges. During the pandemics, countries needed to first take several steps to contain the spread and subsequently find solutions to exit the pandemic—these often being connected also to solutions related to information systems—which can, however, also bring important lesso...

Traditionally, in supply chain management, manufacturers such as HP and P&G fund their downstream retailers through trade credit financing (TCF). Recently, with the advance of FinTech, platforms have also implemented innovative financing schemes called platform credit financing (PCF). Both TCF and PCF are risky, which expose the lender to operation...

Livestream e-commerce is an emerging phenomenon. However, its impact on supply chain operations is largely unknown. Motivated by this important growing market, we propose an analytical model to study a decentralized supply chain with an upstream manufacturer (he) and a downstream retailer (she). Both supply chain members may choose to sell the manu...

Gray markets are infamous for unauthorized diversion of authentic products at lower prices to harm the manufacturer's authorized distribution channel. Hence, manufacturers are becoming more proactive in shaping strategies that can counter gray markets. By considering the risk of unauthorized selling through gray markets, we analyze the manufacturer...

Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of carbon neutral announcements on “stock market value” of publicly listed companies in China. Design/methodology/approach The event study approach is adopted. Market, market-adjusted, Carhart four-factor model and a cross-sectional regression model are employed to examine the impacts of carbon neutral...

Blockchain technology has been widely used in many industries. One current application is in remanufacturing. In this paper we consider the combination of remanufacturing and blockchain, and model a supply chain composed of a manufacturer, a third-party firm, and an online platform. Among them, the manufacturer faces the cap-and-trade regulation an...

Purpose - Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), driven by the downstream buyers’ power, transfers sustainability responsibilities to the upstream supplier. In contrast to the heavily focused buyers’ perspective in the literature, we investigate how this buyer-driven SSCM influences suppliers’ performance, using the measure of stock market rea...

Platforms are giants in today's operations. Companies like Amazon and eBay are huge enterprises which belong to top enterprises in the world. In this article, we discuss platform supply chain innovations in the blockchain era. We first search the literature and identify the level of popularity of the topic over the past years. Next, we review some...

Resale platforms such as Swappa and ThredUP, which provide a channel for product‐holders to sell used products, have become common. Interestingly, in the presence of resale platforms, some firms, such as Apple, set lower rebates for the trade‐in‐for‐upgrade (TU) mode instead of implementing the trade‐in‐for‐upgrade‐and‐cash (TUC) mode as Huawei doe...

Fashion knockoffs, which refer to the copycat behaviours of some brands in fashion apparel, are widely seen. It is commonly believed that the presence of fashion knockoffs harms the original-designer-label (ODL) product seller. Motivated by the industrial interviews and real-world observations, we build game-theoretical models to examine the impact...

The second‐hand clothing imports are very popular in the least developed countries (LDCs). The social health risk (SHR) associated with second‐hand clothing products and the lack of relevant legislations in LDCs, however, bring substantial challenges. This article is therefore developed to explore the sterilization legislation design for second‐han...

In the digital age, operations can be improved by a wise use of information and technological tools. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments faced various vaccine choices having different efficacy and availability levels at different time points. In this paper, we consider a two-stage vaccine ordering problem of a government from a first and only...

In the digital era, third-party food delivery operations are very popular all around the world. However, to achieve a sustainable operation for food delivery businesses is a challenging issue. Motivated by the fact that there is a lack of consolidated view towards the topic in the literature, we conduct a systematic literature review to identify ho...

The papers in this special issue focus on the role of intelligent technologies in the apparel, retailing, and manufacturing (ARM) industry and assesses its impact on technology management. ARM businesses have entered the digital age, in which data analytics and other disruptive technologies have become crucial. There is no doubt that intelligent te...

Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology (BT), have revolutionized the way businesses are managed nowadays, whereas the focus on financial resilience remains critical even in an era of complexity and uncertainty. This study empirically explores the capabilities of AI and BT to ascertain its role in finan...

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered new research areas in supply chain resilience. One of these new areas is viability. Viability extends the resilience understanding from performance-based assessment of firm’s responses to disruptions towards survivability of both supply chains and associated ecosystems not only during some short-term disruptions...

Objectives: This PhD Summer School on Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) aims to provide a platform for PhD students to learn different research methodologies and their applications in the OSCM context. It will include several sessions delivered by faculty members in the Department of Operations and Supply Chain Management and the Centr...

Foreword: The crises brought by unexpected disruptions (e.g., pandemics, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods) damage supply chain operations globally. To better survive a crisis, the top priority should be revolutionizing the global supply chain to achieve responsiveness, resilience, and restoration (3Rs). We propose several strategic measures to h...

In global supply chains, third-party logistics (3PL) services have proven to be critically important in helping many supply chain agents with distribution tasks so that they can focus on their core competencies of product development and manufacturing. However, there are many inadequacies in current global supply chains that affect the functions of...

Blockchain technology has been widely used in many industries. One current application is in remanufacturing. In this paper we consider the combination of remanufacturing and blockchain, and model a supply chain composed of a manufacturer, a third-party firm, and an online platform. Among them, the manufacturer faces the cap-and-trade regulation an...

As blockchain (BC) improves the credibility of the product provenance information (on authenticity and sustainability), more and more luxury brands are adopting BC in practice. Will this adoption benefit them and their consumers? Will it lead to more disclosure of the product information? To address these questions, we build a stylized economic mod...

Today, ride-hailing platform operations are popular. Facing pandemics (e.g., COVID-19) some customers feel unsafe for the ride-hailing service and possess a “safety risk-averse” (SRA) attitude. The proportion of this type of SRA customers is unfortunately unknown, which makes it difficult for the ride-hailing platform to decide its optimal service...

In order to enhance the competitiveness of firms and seek more opportunities, it is increasingly popular for service platforms in different markets to promote their products jointly. To acquire a competitive edge and enhance sustainability of supply chains, it is crucial for such cross-market service platforms to take into account the cost incurred...

In the Industry 4.0 era, manufacturers commonly adopt digital technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology to improve information disclosure. In this paper, we focus on how the government can properly set an extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy (penalty or subsidy) and impose it on the manufacturer to entice the...

Service supply chain management (SSCM) is critical to global business operations. In particular, achieving channel coordination for service supply chains in a global context is challenging. In this paper, we provide an updated review of the related literature and propose an agenda for further studies. To be specific, we first review the recent oper...

In business-to-business (B2B) operations, prior studies have mainly explored transaction-based relationships with both buyers and suppliers opportunistic, driven largely by their intent to maximize their own benefits. These studies have also found that dependency on partners' increases when supply materials are scarce. However, research is scant on...

This data is all about 'Online Appendices', of the accepted paper entitled "A Meta-Analysis of Sustainable Supply Chain Practices and Performance: The Moderating Roles of Type of Economy and Innovation", in the International Journal of Operations and Production Management.

Purpose – In recent years, sustainable supply chain practices (SSCP), including corporate social responsibility (CSR), have been recognised as important means of developing firms’ sustainability performance (SP). However, empirical findings on the SSCP–SP interaction are inconsistent and even contradictory. This research presents a quantitative met...

Today, high-tech industries such as consumer electronics commonly face government rules on carbon emissions. Among the rules, carbon emission tax as well as extended producer responsibility (EPR) tax are two important measures. Using blockchain, the policy makers can better determine the carbon target environmental taxation (CTET) policy with accur...

Nowadays, more and more firms are providing trade-in and “(product) extended warranty” (EW) services to attract new and old customers and boost new product sales. In practice, firms have two trade-in strategies for replacement consumers who own an unused EW, namely (i) do not offer another rebate for an unused EW (Model TT), and (ii) offer a rebate...

Recently, an increasing number of companies have encountered random production disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we investigate a two-stage supply chain in which a retailer can order products from a low-price (“cheap”) unreliable supplier (who may be subject to an uncertain production disruption and partially deliver the orde...

This work addresses the issue of intelligent robot-human coordinated parts-to-picker order fulfillment carried out in a human-friendly manner. One unique feature of the proposed approach involves integrating a real-time data-driven stochastic-dynamic model with a fatigue accumulation function. The optimal solutions help achieve coordination between...

Today, e-commerce retailers commonly operate in a dual-channel mode. Return freight insurance (RFI) is an emerging measure to resolve online shopping disputes with product returns. If a consumer returns an insured product, the insurance company will compensate the consumer for the return-freight fee. In practice, we observe that some dual-channel e...

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has posed serious threats and challenges to global supply chain management (GSCM). To survive the crisis, it is critical to rethink the proper setting of global supply chains and reform many related operational strategies. We hence attempt to reform the GSCM from both supply and demand sides considering different pan...

COVID-19 pandemic has created disruptions and risks in global supply chains. Big data analytics (BDA) has emerged in recent years as a potential solution for provisioning predictive and pre-emptive information to companies in order to pre-plan and mitigate the impacts of such risks. The focus of this study is to gain insights into how BDA can help...

Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of supply chain quality event (SCQE) announcements on enterprises’ stock market value. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts the event study approach and analyzes the changes in shareholder value of companies listed in China based on data from 118 SCQE announcements. In the event study, the mar...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slew of new business practices that have put the society and environment under strain. This has drawn the attention of supply chain researchers working to address the COVID-19 pandemic's looming social sustainability issues. Prior literature has indicated that collaborative relationships improve organizationa...

In platform operations, consumer returns are common. In this paper, considering the consumer returns window (CRW), we analytically study the manufacturer’s operational decisions using the marketplace mode and reselling mode. We explore both the exogenous and endogenous CRW scenarios. We uncover several findings: First, with an exogenous CRW, the op...

Altruistic behaviors, which refer to the behaviors such as caring for benefits of others, exist in practice. Altruistic behaviors are widely explored in sociology and economics but under-studied in operational research (OR). In this paper, by exploring the classic newsvendor inventory problems in a two-echelon supply chain, we uncover how an altrui...

Many pioneer online retailers, such as Overstock, have started to support cryptocurrency payments. However, the fierce price volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoins) hinders their adoption as regular payment tools. Stablecoins, commonly backed by real assets, are proposed to make cryptocurrencies more acceptable in daily payments...

Commercial sharing services (CSSs) provide consumers with temporary access to products or services. Consumers can use CSSs to communicate an identity by renting products from specific brands. Applying the theory of the extended self, we proposed an attachment-based account of CSS usage. Across four studies, we found consistent evidence that consume...

Achieving pre-determined profit targets is a common objective for many retailers. In the supply chain system, how to optimize the whole system with this type of retailers is an important problem. In this paper, we theoretically study this supply chain systems optimization (“coordination”) problem with the consideration of bargaining powers of suppl...

The circular economy (CE) and Industry 4.0 are both vital new perspectives in production economics and operations management. However, it remains largely unclear whether or not there are complementary effects on performance which can be achieved by adopting them together. This paper bridges this gap through an empirical study. Drawing upon the reso...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been adopted as one of firms’ risk management tools to resist negative shocks. However, it is unclear which aspect of CSR works and whether it differs among firms in different supply chain positions. Knowing this is crucial for firms to formulate better CSR portfolios in their operations according to their...

Trade-in programs are commonly seen in practice. Both the trade-in-for-upgrade (TU) and trade-in-for-upgrade-and-cash (TUC) modes are widely implemented, in which the consumer can buy an upgraded product at a lower price with the trade-in of a used old product. Nowadays, sales-oriented firms must also concern themselves with the emergence of popula...

We have witnessed the rapid growth and impact of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (TRE) in both supply chain and transportation communities since it was founded in 1997 with a particular focus on logistics and transportation. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of TRE (1997–2021), we aim to investigate impactful res...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on mankind, causing physical suffering and deaths across the globe. Even those who have not contracted the virus have experienced its far-reaching impacts, particularly on their mental health. The increased incidences of psychological problems, anxiety associated with the infection, social restrictions,...

Sustainable operations management (SOM) is a well-established field, which is crucially important to fashion business nowadays. Traditional SOM studies employ methods such as theoretical modeling (e.g., mathematical analyses), quantitative empirical (e.g., surveys), and qualitative empirical (e.g., interviews, case studies). In recent years, to enh...

Agri-Food Supply Chains (AFSCs) are critical in our society. Proper management of AFSCs is crucial for improving social welfare. Over the past years, digitisation in AFSCs has emerged as a new paradigm. In this context, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a growing approach, providing a huge amount of information to manage AFSCs. Thus, the purpose of t...

Abstract: Consumer behaviour is changing in the e-commerce age for apparel products. More and more consumers tend to bracket, which means they purchase multiple versions of the same product to try at home and return those that do not meet their requirements. This bracketing behaviour can increase the likelihood that consumers buy the good-fit produ...

This article empirically examines the impact of management control systems (MCS) on managing supply chain resilience (SCR) to enhance organizational competitiveness under environmental uncertainty. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) theory and levers of control (LoC) framework, an industrial survey has been conducted. Analyses performed...

Blockchain technology is a ground breaking disruptive technology in production and logistics systems. However, how it affects logistics and production over the past years as well as what should be examined next remain unclear. This paper fills this gap by first discussing the evolution of blockchain (from Blockchain 1.0 to Blockchain 5.0). Then, we...

Today, many e-tailers sell through e-platforms. Some of them sell products through both their own direct-online (DO) sales channel and e-platforms, while some give up their own DO sales channel and sell solely through e-platforms. Motivated by the popularity of e-platforms, we explore in this paper the optimal channel selection and e-platform servi...

Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of blockchain announcements on enterprises' stock market value. Design/methodology/approach Based on resource-based theory, this study constructs a complete framework of the impact mechanism of blockchain announcements on the stock price of the announcing firm using the data of 143 blockchain announcem...

Luxury rental operations are increasingly popular nowadays. In this study, we develop game-theoretical models to examine the optimal renter's integration strategies (RISs) in a luxury supply chain with conspicuous consumers. The luxury supply chain consists of one manufacturer, one seller and one renter. Conspicuous consumers are sensitive to the t...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is critical. As a part of CSR, fashion companies have to decide whether to be ethical or not during the product development process. Motivated by real-world practices, we conduct a gametheoretic modeling analysis and derive the firms' optimal decisions (including ethical operations (ETO) adoption, pricing, and...

In the digital era, achieving economic sustainability requires proper management of risk with deployment of technologies. In this paper, we discuss how the popular blockchain technology can be applied for risk analysis and optimization (RAO) in real-world oriented operations research (OR) problems. We first present the OR approach and examine the r...

Shopping on a live-streaming e-commerce platform has become a popular way of consumption. In this paper we build models to study the decision-making of online celebrity retailers (OCRs), taking into consideration consumers' anticipated regret behaviors. We explore the OCR's optimal pricing and quality decisions under the basic models, and further e...

Under COVID-19, lots of supply disruption cases have appeared which highlight the importance of supply risk management. In this paper, we explore the commonly seen "supply guarantee deposit payment (SGDP)" scheme in fashion supply chains with production disruptions. Under the SGDP scheme, the apparel manufacturer guarantees the fashion retailer tha...

During the recent COVID-19 (CoV) global outbreak, there is a sharp decline of revenue of on-demand ride-hailing (ODR) platforms because people have serious worries of infection in the shared vehicles. Blockchain, which supports cryptocurrency and creates full traceability of the service history of each car and driver, may come to rescue by allowing...