New Issues in Supply Chain Management: Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility and Cognitive Bias

随着市场的全球化，企业有机会在全球范围内寻找质量更好、成本更低的产品，但同时也面临着更复杂的供应链。利用运筹学/管理科学和经济学的工具，本研究的目的是探讨供应链管理中可持续发展、环境和社会责任以及决策偏差等领域的新问题。第一个研究主题是政府环境法规对供应链运作的影响。全球变暖、水污染和垃圾填埋造成了严重的环境恶化，促使行业和政府立即采取行动。许多国家已经实施或正在讨论实施各种法规，以重塑公司/供应链的生产和运营。我们研究了不同的环境政策如何影响供应链的运营决策，以及哪种类型的环境政策能带来更好的环境效率和供应链绩效，从而为社会带来整体效益。研究的第二个目的是由最近的新闻报道，灾难性的后果发生在全球供应链由于不安全的生产做法的动机。倡导负责任采购的全球非营利组织Sedex进行的一项案例研究显示，在供应链的较高层次，违反社会和环境责任的风险在规模和严重程度上都有所增加。由于全球供应链的复杂性，终端公司往往无法获得和验证上层供应商的真实信息/活动。因此，对于多层不可验证的供应链，所提出的问题是如何调整直接供应商的激励，以及上层供应商的激励，以维持环境和社会监管标准。本研究的目的是探讨机制设计，以调整供应链成员的激励，以在盈利能力和环境和社会影响方面实现最佳绩效。第三个研究课题是考虑决策偏差对供应链决策的影响。来自不同地区的全球供应链管理人员可能具有不同水平的信息处理和决策能力，许多人存在认知偏差。我们研究决策偏差如何影响运营决策，以及这反过来如何影响供应链协调和合同。本文的研究结果将为可持续供应链的生产和运营提供新的见解，更好地协调供应链成员对可持续社会的激励，促进考虑决策偏差的供应链管理理论和实践的发展。

With globalization of the markets, firms have the opportunity to seek out better quality and lower cost goods worldwide, but at the same time face extended and more complex supply chains. Utilizing the tools from operations research/management science and economics, the objective of this research is to explore emerging issues in supply chain management in the areas of sustainability, environmental and social responsibilities, and decision bias.The first research topic concerns the impact of government environmental regulations on supply chain operations. Global warming, water pollution, and landfill waste are causing serious environmental deterioration, prompting industries and governments to take immediate actions. Many countries have implemented, or are debating the implementation of, various regulations to reshape firms/supply chains' productions and operations. We investigate how different environmental policies affect the operational decisions of supply chains, and what type of environmental policy induces better environmental efficiency and supply chain performance, resulting in an overall benefit to society. The second purpose of the research is motivated by the recent news reports about disastrous outcome occurred in global supply chains due to unsafe production practices. In a case study conducted by Sedex, a global non-profit organization that advocates responsible sourcing, it is reported that the risk of social and environmental responsibility violations increases in the higher tiers of the supply chain in both scale and severity. Due to the complexity of global supply chains, the end firms are often not able to obtain and verify upper-tier suppliers' true information/activities. Thus, for multi-tier non-verifiable supply chains, the question posed is how to align the incentive of not only the immediate supplier, but also the upper-tier suppliers to sustain environmental and social regulatory standards. The purpose of this research is to investigate mechanism design to align the incentives of supply chain members to achieve the best possible performance in terms of both profitability and environmental and social impacts. The third research topic is to consider the impact of decision bias on supply chain decisions. Global supply chain managers from different regions might have differing levels of information-processing and decision-making abilities, and many suffer from cognitive bias. We investigate how decision bias affects the operations decisions, and how this in turn affects supply chain coordination and contracts. The results of this research will provide new insights on the sustainable supply chain productions and operations, better align the incentives of supply chain members for a sustainable society, and advance supply chain management theory and practice with the consideration of decision bias.