Purpose: Batteries installed on electric vehicles (EVs) should normally be removed when their capacity falls to 70-80 per cent, but they are still usable for other purposes, such as energy storage. This paper studies an EV battery closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a battery manufacturer and a remanufacturer. The manufacturer produces new batteries by using natural resources, while the remanufacturer collects returned batteries and makes decisions based on the return quality, that is, to reuse or recycle. The purpose of this paper is to maximise the individual profits through optimising the amount of manufacturing and remanufacturing, respectively, and optimising the purchase price of returned batteries.Design/methodology/approach: Based on the Nash equilibrium, this paper develops a three-period model in the CLSC. In period 1, batteries are made from raw materials; in period 2, returned batteries from period 1 are sorted into low quality and high quality. Some high-quality returns can be reused for other purposes while those non-reusable returns are recycled into materials. In period 3, all the returns are recycled into materials. The analytical results are derived.Findings: The result of the analyses suggest that first, among the variables that affect the (re-)manufacturing decision, the purchase price for returned batteries plays a critical role. In particular, the price of low-quality returns has more influence than the price of high quality returns. Second, the higher purchase price for re-usable returns does not necessarily lead to a higher return rate of reusable returns. Third, the manufacturer’s profit is normally higher than the remanufacturer’s. This suggests the need to design incentives to promote the remanufacturing sector. And finaly, although it is appreciated that maximising the utilisation of batteries over the life-cycle would benefit the environment, the economic benefit needs further investigation.Originality/value: Although the CLSC has been widely studied, studies on the EV battery CLSC are scarce. The EV battery CLSC is particularly challenging in terms of the reusability of returns because used EV batteries cannot be reused for the original purpose, which complicates CLSC operations. This paper explores the interrelationship between manufacturer and remanufacturer, explaining the reasons why recycling is still underdeveloped, and suggests the possibility of enhancing remanufacturing profitability.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide implementation insights and implications regarding the strategic orientations of servitization by testing its impacts on firm performance, including financial performance and customer service performance. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical research is conducted using an online survey disseminated to manufacturing firms in Southeast China. This research develops and verifies a strategic fit framework to understand the relationship between the strategic orientation of servitization and service innovation (SI), and its resulting impacts on firm performance. Findings: The results show that service orientation (SO) has direct positive impacts on firm performance in the manufacturing sector. Customer orientation (CO) and learning orientation (LO) have no direct impact on firm performance, although they have indirect impacts on it via the mediating role of SI capability. Moreover, SO has a similar indirect impact on firm performance via SI capability. Research limitations/implications: The survey focuses only on China; future studies should verify whether different cultural backgrounds impact the research results. Practical implications: The results suggest that firms should build up three strategic orientations (SO, CO and LO) for implementing servitization to facilitate SI capability and, thus, to improve firm performance. Originality/value: This research contributes to enhancing the theory of servitization by developing a strategic fit model of servitization and revealing the impact mechanism of servitization in the manufacturing sector.

This paper investigates the acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) in Japan, the UK and Germany and speculates on the implications for policy and practice. Three on-line surveys of 3,000 members of the public in total, which were conducted in January 2017 (Japan), March 2018 (UK) and November/December 2018 (Germany) were analysed using Principal Component Analysis and then with an Ordered Logit Model. It finds that acceptance of AVs was higher amongst people with higher expectations of the benefits of AVs, those with less knowledge of AVs, and those with lower perceptions of risk. It also finds frequent drivers and car passengers to be more accepting, but that socio-economic factors were mostly insignificant. Finally, there were significant cultural differences between the levels of acceptance between Japan (broadly positive), the UK (broadly neutral) and Germany (broadly negative). These findings suggest that AV promoters should raise (or at least maintain) expectations of AVs among the public; engage with the public to reverse the negative perception of AVs; address AV-generated fears; not bother targeting people by socio-economic group; target frequent car drivers and passengers with information about what AVs could do for them; and target countries where AVs already enjoy a positive image.

With the proposal of China’s “carbon peak, carbon neutral” strategy, the increasing awareness of low carbon production among consumers, and the government’s introduction of carbon trading mechanism and low carbon consumption subsidy policies, enterprises are facing good opportunities for development. However, how the government can reasonably formulate low carbon policies and how enterprises can implement optimal low-carbon production decisions are still key issues in China’s low-carbon transition development. In this context, this paper is based on the carbon trading mechanism and carbon consumption subsidies. In this context, based on the carbon trading mechanism, this paper focuses on green production and green consumption, considers the impact of low-carbon consumer preferences and government subsidies on enterprises’ low-carbon production decisions, and uses the optimal theory to study the optimal pricing strategy and the optimal carbon reduction strategy. The study shows that the increase in carbon price has a positive effect on the increase in enterprise profit; the increase of carbon emission has a negative effect on the increase of enterprise profit and the high carbon price will intensify this effect. In addition, changing the intensity of government subsidies to consumers will lead to the change of enterprise carbon emission strategy. The study of this paper provides a certain reference for the government to reasonably formulate carbon trading prices and consumer low-carbon subsidies. In addition, considering consumer low-carbon preferences is also conducive to promoting green production practices of enterprises, thus promoting the realization of the carbon neutral strategy.

This paper presents a model designed to measure and investigate the relationships between critical factors, practices, and performance of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in the food industry. A survey of 423 firms in the Greek food industry was conducted to meet these objectives. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, to explore the relationships between the model’s constructs. The results indicate that “firm-level critical sustainability factors” and “supply chain critical sustainability factors” significantly enhance “supply chain collaboration” and “supply chain strategic orientation”. Additionally, “supply chain strategic orientation” positively influences “social performance” and “environmental performance”, while “supply chain collaboration” positively affects “economic performance” and “environmental performance”. Furthermore, “social performance” is found to have a significant positive impact on “economic performance”. This study provides empirical evidence that helps managers understand the importance of the relationships among SSCM critical factors, SSCM practices, and SSCM performance, and enables them to allocate resources effectively and design SSCM strategies. Finally, the developed constructs offer a measurement tool useful for both practitioners implementing SSCM in their firms and researchers who wish to apply or test the proposed scales in other projects or use them as benchmarks.