Dual-Channel Supply Chain Decisions with Risk-Averse Behavior

In the era of e-commerce and digitalization, new commercial patterns and opportunities are emerging. For example, in addition to traditional reselling marketing channels, manufacturers can easily open direct channels using a variety of digital marketing strategies. These new marketing channels will cause conflict and competition between manufacturers and resellers. This raises the important question of how to make optimal decisions for multiple players in dual-channel supply chain contexts. Within changing and uncertain operation environments, business enterprises must face tougher challenges than before to survive in competitive markets. This book aims to address representative decision-making problems in dual-channel supply chains with risk-averse channel members. The most recently developed risk assessment technique, Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR), will be adopted as the predominant criterion to measure the risk-averse attitude. Based on game theory, important issues such as channel selection, pricing, order quantity, manufacturer encroachment, greening strategy, consumer return policies, financing strategies, channel coordination, contract design, information asymmetry, and capacity constraint will be modeled and analyzed. This book will help readers better understand operations management in dual-channel supply chain contexts with risk-averse behaviors, and will also provide effective techniques and tools for researchers and offer managerial insights for practitioners.