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This paper aims to study whether the adoption of an entry mode that fits the social trust level contributes to the improvement of foreign subsidiary performance.

The authors used the Probit model, linear regression, strategic fit approach and instrumental variable regression. The sample was made up of 11,095 observations of Chinese multinational enterprises' foreign subsidiaries in 54 countries from 2005 to 2020.

The results suggest that a host country with a high level of social trust results in fewer difficulties for enterprises in gaining legitimacy, thus foreign subsidiaries are more likely to select the wholly owned entry mode. The results also show that the effect is contingent on the formal institutions of host countries. The results of the mechanism test suggest that social trust influences subsidiaries' entry mode choice by reducing information asymmetry, costs and uncertainty risks. This study further finds that selecting a fit entry mode based on social trust level substantially increases foreign subsidiary performance and this effect is more significant when multinational enterprises (MNEs) are state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The main limitation of this paper is its only focus on foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNEs, which may limit the generalizability of research findings.

This paper responds to the call for conducting more research on informal institutions. Findings highlight the critical role of informal institutions in helping foreign subsidiaries in gaining legitimacy in host countries and the essentialness of selecting a fit entry mode based on the informal institutions of host countries for the development of foreign subsidiaries.

Given their interrelationship, international market selection (IMS) and entry mode selection (EMS) must be considered jointly if an optimal entry strategy is to be realized. However, researchers in the field of international construction have the tendency to consider IMS and EMS independently or sequentially. Therefore, this paper aims to explore a holistic framework that can accommodate IMS and EMS concurrently and test it using empirical data.

his study includes theoretical and empirical research. In theoretical part, an integrated decision model of IMS and EMS is proposed adopting literature review and theoretical derivation, then hypotheses are developed for the impact of decision-making factors. In the latter part, the IMS and EMS of 54 Chinese contractors in 67 countries were investigated, empirical data are collected according to hypotheses, an ordinal logistic regression model is established for statistics analysis. Finally, findings are drawn by comparing literature-based hypotheses with data-based analysis results.

Results show that empirical data fit theoretical model well. Findings are: IMS and EMS can be integrated into a holistic decision-making framework when be properly sequenced. When IMS and EMS are determined simultaneously, the decision can benefit from a sharing of common information. And the roles of at least 13 common factors are empirically demonstrated in this study.

The integrated decision sequence proposed in this study is applicable for a specific market, and cannot compare multiple alternative markets directly. The decision-making factors identified in this paper do not cover the enterprise strategic objectives and some other factors. Empirical data and some theoretical assumptions are based on the international market entry strategy of Chinese contractors. Therefore, the conclusions may not be completely applicable to global contractors though have certain reference value.

Based on the idea of holistic decision-making of IMS and EMS, this study proposes an international market entry strategy (IMES) sequence and an explicit model for determinants, then tests them with empirical data. This paper provides a new idea to manage IMS and EMS concurrently, which can improve the efficiency of IMES decision-making and avoid missing optimal alternatives. This study paves the way for a practical model and provides reference for contractors' international market entry strategy.

Omnichannel sales have provided new impetus for the development of catering merchants. The authors thus focus on how catering merchants should manage capacities at the ordering, production and delivery stages to meet customers’ needs in different channels under third-party platform delivery and merchant self-delivery. This is of great significance for the development of the omnichannel catering industry.

This paper formulates the capacity decisions of omnichannel catering merchants under the third-party platform delivery and merchant self-delivery mode. The authors mainly use queuing theory to analyze the queuing behavior of online and offline customers, and the impact of waiting time on customer shopping behavior. In addition, the authors also characterize the merchant’s capacity by the rate in queuing model.

The authors find that capacities at ordering stage and food production stage are composed of base capacities and safety capacities, but the delivery capacities only have the latter. And in the self-delivery mode, merchants can develop higher safety capacities by charging delivery fees. The authors prove that regardless of the delivery mode, omnichannel sales can bring higher profits to merchants by integrating demand.

The authors focus on analyzing the capacity management of omnichannel catering merchants at the ordering, production and delivery stages. And the authors also add the delivery process into the omnichannel for analysis, so as to solve the problem of capacity decision-making under different delivery modes. The management of delivery capacity and its impact on other stages’ capacities are not covered in other literature studies, which is one of the main innovations of this paper.

Distribution network design involves a set of strategic decisions in supply chains because of their long-term impacts on the total logistics cost and environment. To incorporate a trade-off between financial and environmental aspects of these decisions, this paper aims to determine an optimal location, among candidate locations, of a new logistics center, its capacity, as well as optimal network flows for an existing distribution network, while concurrently minimizing the total logistics cost and gas emission. In addition, uncertainty in transportation and warehousing costs are considered.

The problem is formulated as a fuzzy multiobjective mathematical model. The effectiveness of this model is demonstrated using an industrial case study. The problem instance is a four-echelon distribution network with 22 products and a planning horizon of 20 periods. The model is solved by using the min–max and augmented ε-constraint methods with CPLEX as the solver. In addition to illustrating model’s applicability, the effect of choosing a new warehouse in the model is investigated through a scenario analysis.

For the applicability of the model, the results indicate that the augmented ε-constraint approach provides a set of Pareto solutions, which represents the ideal trade-off between the total logistics cost and gas emission. Through a case study problem instance, the augmented ε-constraint approach is recommended for similar network design problems. From a scenario analysis, when the operational cost of the new warehouse is within a specific fraction of the warehousing cost of third-party warehouses, the solution with the new warehouse outperforms that without the new warehouse with respective to financial and environmental objectives.

The proposed model is an effective decision support tool for management, who would like to assess the impact of network planning decisions on the performance of their supply chains with respect to both financial and environmental aspects under uncertainty.

The demand for long-term home care services has been increasing in Taiwan due to the significant growth of the older population. In order to understand the crucial roles that language and communication play in providing better long-term home care services in Taiwan, this study aims to adopt a gerontological sociolinguistic perspective to investigate how professional care workers communicate with older people in this context.

Interviews were conducted with 58 long-term home care workers to identify their communication accommodation strategies for older people, considering their health conditions (dementia), personalities (grumpiness), living status (loneliness) and general principles of long-term home care communication.

The study's findings provide practical insights for long-term home care workers to enhance their communication skills while interacting with older people.

The results could contribute to improving the quality of care services provided to older people and address their specific communication needs.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to identify contextually specific communication accommodations to older people in existing literature of gerontological sociolinguistics that addresses language, communication and older age. The salience of the findings in this study can be further enhanced if they were applied in the development of training programs for future Taiwanese long-term home care workers.

This paper forms an e-commerce supply chain that include a manufacturer providing products and an online platform providing service. The reselling platform mode and the agent platform mode are considered through an exploration of the manufacturer Stackelberg (MS), vertical Nash (VN), platform Stackelberg (PS) power structures. The purpose of this paper is to explore the pricing and platform service decisions under different platform selling modes and channel power structures.

Based on the game theory models, this paper investigates the interaction between the manufacturer and the online platform under four different scenarios. The optimal solutions of four models are provided. Through comparison analyses, this paper evaluates the impacts of platform selling mode and channel power structure on the pricing and platform service decisions and the members’ profits.

The manufacturer prefers the MS power structure in any platform mode. The online platform prefers the PS (MS) power structure under a low (high) service cost efficiency in the reselling platform mode, while prefers the PS and VN power structures in the agent platform mode. Moreover, the manufacturer prefers the agent (reselling) platform mode under a low (high) service cost efficiency in any power structure. The online platform prefers the reselling platform mode in the MS and PS power structures, while prefers the reselling (agent) platform mode under a low (high) service cost efficiency in the VN power structures.

The analysis result provides important managerial implications that help the supply chain members develop a better understanding of the selection of the platform selling mode and the effect of the channel power structure in the presence of platform service.

Motivated by the real-world practice that the boom of the online selling induces a higher product return as well, selecting which online channel mode indicates who takes ownership over the product and thus bears the loss of the product return. This paper aims to seek the optimal online channel modes for the two members in a platform supply chain in the presence of product returns.

This study aims to develop a platform supply chain that consists of one platform company and one supplier. Along with an offline distribution channel, the supplier can choose two alternative online selling modes (i.e. the reselling and agency modes) to sell its product through the online marketplace. This paper applies Stackelberg game to derive the equilibrium with different business scenarios and selects the optimal online channel modes for two parties, respectively. Moreover, this paper extends to a different supply chain with a reverse channel leadership and a different product return policy for testing the robustness.

Several interesting and important results are derived in this paper. Firstly, it is found that the relative pricing are largely relied on the costs of two channels. Secondly, the platform supply chain may benefit from a pure channel rather than the dual-channel when this channel enjoys a relatively low cost and/or a sufficiently high consumer preference. Then, the platform and the supplier act contradictorily when selecting their optimal online channel modes. To be specific, the platform motivates to choose the online reselling mode when both the commission rate and the slotting fee are relatively low, whereas the supplier is likely to select the online agency mode under this circumstance. Finally, a win-win situation in regards to the optimal online channel mode for two parties is achievable with numerical experiments.

Based on the analytical studies, the results derived in the authors’ work can provide managerial insights to assist the supplier and the platform company in determining the operational decision and selecting the optimal online channel mode to deal with consumer returns. In addition, appropriate commission rate along with slotting fee will make both parties achieve a win-win situation in determining their optimal online channel mode.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this paper makes the first move to determine the optimal online channel mode in the content of consumer returns and study how it is affected by different product return policies.

This study aims to investigate the most effective approach for governments and enterprises to combat desertification by considering the governance cycle. The focus is on understanding how the government can incentivize enterprises to actively engage in desertification combat efforts.

Both the government and the enterprise are treated as rational entities, making strategic choices for joint participation in combating desertification. Recognizing the dynamic nature of the desertification combat area, differential game models are employed to identify the optimal mode for combating desertification.

The findings underscore the significant influence of the governance cycle duration on the selection of desertification combat modes for government and enterprise. A cooperative mode is best suited to a short governance cycle, while an ecological subsidy mode is optimal for a longer cycle. Enhancing governance technology and shortening the governance cycle are conducive to combating desertification. Reducing taxes alone may not be an effective control strategy; rather, the government can better motivate enterprises by adopting tax rate policies aligned with the chosen governance mode.

This research contributes by elucidating the impact mechanism of the government cycle’s length on the desertification combat process. The results may offer valuable insights for governments in formulating strategies to encourage corporate participation in combating desertification and provide theoretical support for selecting optimal desertification combat modes.

Serious games (SGs) are virtual systems that allow the reconstruction of the laws governing the behavior of complex adaptive systems such as urban transportation and social interaction. Unlike stated preference-based studies, improved visualization, feedback, and scores mediate players’ learning through experience. SG’s potential to understand users’ preferences regarding shared automated vehicles (SAVs) is developed. The investigation focused on three innovative, entirely automated commuting options: shared rides, shared cars, and automated transit. The research involved 10 participants actively involved in a competitive mode selection exercise, which emulated 50 workdays and was conducted in 10 separate sessions. The players aimed to maximize their overall score influenced by their mode choice, punctuality, and the other players’ choices. SG-obtained data was used to estimate a game-based discrete choice model. The sustainability policy implications of game-based methods on the future adoption of SAVs and impacts on other modes are further discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze manufacturers' production decisions and governments' low-carbon policies in the context of influencer spillover effects.

This paper investigates the impact of the social influencer spillover effect on manufacturers' production decisions when they collaborate with intermediary platforms to sell products through marketplace or reseller modes. Game theory and static numerical comparison are used to analyze our models.

Firstly, under low-carbon policies, the spillover effect does not always benefit manufacturer profits and changes non-monotonically with an increasing spillover effect. Secondly, in cases where there are both a carbon emission constraint and a spillover effect present, if either the manufacturer or intermediary platform holds a strong position, then marketplace mode benefits manufacturer profits. Thirdly, regardless of business mode used when environmental damage coefficient is high for products; government should implement cap-and-trade regulation to optimize social welfare while reducing manufacturers’ carbon emissions.

This study offers theoretical and practical research support to assist manufacturers in optimizing production decisions for compliance with carbon emission limits, enhancing profits through the development of effective influencer marketing strategies, and providing strategies to mitigate carbon emissions and enhance social welfare while sustaining manufacturing activities.

This paper addresses the limitations of prior research by examining how the social influencer spillover effect influences manufacturers' business mode choices under government low-carbon policies and analyzing the social welfare of different carbon emission restrictions when such spillovers occur. Our findings provide valuable insights for manufacturers in selecting optimal marketing strategies and business modes and decision-makers in implementing effective regulations.