IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management最新文献

{"title":"Designing Smart Offerings Under Privacy Costs: A Platform-Based Product Strategy","authors":"Yi Xia;Yifan Wang;Jiajun Chen;Liqun Wei","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2026.3683783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2026.3683783","url":null,"abstract":"Internet of Things (IoT) platforms enhance suppliers' basic product by integrating smart features through efficient data collection and analysis. Although smart technology improves the consumer experience, it raises privacy concerns. Information asymmetry between suppliers and platforms regarding consumer privacy concerns affects decision-making of both parties. The article proposes an analytical model in which the supplier sells the basic product directly to consumers while also providing it to the IoT platform at a wholesale price. The platform then enhances the product into smart version for resale to consumers. Two decision sequences were considered: Platform-leading and supplier-leading. We find that decision timing and information structures interact significantly. Under the symmetric information about consumers' privacy concerns, both the platform and supplier are better-off for making decisions first. Interestingly, under asymmetric information, supply chain members can reach a consensus on the decision sequence if the smartness level is low and the probability of high privacy concern is moderate, or the smartness level is high and the probability of high privacy concern is low. Moreover, in platform-leading scenario, asymmetric information always benefits the supplier but harms the platform. However, in supplier-leading scenario, asymmetric information harms the supplier, while also harms the platform when the consumers' privacy concern is high level. Therefore, mastering both first-mover and information advantages simultaneously can hurt the platform.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"2834-2848"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147796175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Leveraging Return Shipping Insurance as a Differentiation Strategy: The Influence of Consumer Preferences and Market Competition","authors":"Jing Yu;Jiaxin Wang;Chi Zhou;Tieshan Li","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2026.3680152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2026.3680152","url":null,"abstract":"The rise of e-commerce and the prevalence of online shopping have made it a significant part of consumers' lives. However, its inherent uncertainties have also led to a surge in product returns, posing substantial challenges for retailers. Return shipping insurance has thus emerged as a key strategy to mitigate return-related issues. This study develops a duopoly competition framework based on the Hotelling model, incorporating consumer heterogeneity (sensitive and nonsensitive consumers), to systematically examine the impact of different return shipping insurance strategies (models NN, RN, NR, and RR) on retailer pricing, demand, and profit. The research finds that offering return shipping insurance elevates product prices, but its effect on demand depends on the proportion of sensitive consumers in the market: insurance effectively stimulates demand only when this proportion is high. In markets with symmetric costs, competition typically drives firms toward identical insurance strategies. Under cost asymmetry, however, insurance becomes a crucial instrument for shaping the competitive landscape. Specifically, in markets with a high proportion of sensitive consumers and intense competition, a high-cost retailer can establish service differentiation by exclusively offering insurance, thereby accessing a segment willing to pay a premium. Meanwhile, a low-cost retailer makes flexible decisions based on the proportion of sensitive consumers: when the proportion is low, it forgoes insurance to serve the mass market with its cost advantage; when the proportion is high, it offers insurance to lead the industry's service standard and consolidate its efficiency advantage.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"2611-2628"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147696685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Manufacturer’s Pricing and Consumer Behavior With Peer-to-Peer Marketplace and Collection Platform","authors":"Dongfeng Jia;Sijie Li","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2026.3676460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2026.3676460","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of the growing secondhand economy, this article examines a supply chain involving a monopolistic manufacturer of durable products operating under three configurations: no secondhand market (Scenario N), participation in a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace (Scenario P2P), and collaboration with a collection platform (Scenario PL). We develop three game-theoretic models to characterize the manufacturer’s pricing decisions and consumers’ purchase and replacement behaviors across these scenarios. Our main findings are as follows. First, in Scenario P2P, the manufacturer can induce all, some, or none of the replacement consumers (i.e., consumers holding a used product) to repurchase new products, depending on the production cost of the new product, whereas in Scenario PL, the manufacturer can induce only some or none of them to do so. Second, when production costs are low, a P2P marketplace benefits the manufacturer but it becomes detrimental as production costs increase. By contrast, partnering with a collection platform weakly increases the manufacturer’s profit (i.e., it either improves profit or leaves it unchanged). Third, relative to Scenario PL, Scenario P2P yields higher consumer surplus in most cases, except when both the upgrade level of the new product and its production cost are high. Counterintuitively, when production costs are high, higher transaction costs in secondhand markets can benefit consumers. For robustness, we extend the model to allow for the manufacturer’s dynamic pricing, replacement consumers’ repurchase in Scenario N, and new-product upgrades.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"2516-2530"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147665342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of Multinational Venture Capital on the Startups’ Performance: Insights From Europe","authors":"Yang Liu;Yufei Qiu;Fangjing Bu;Wanling Xie;Lining Han","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2026.3668200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2026.3668200","url":null,"abstract":"Venture capital (VC) investment plays a crucial role in the functioning of firms and the overall economy, and its significance has been increasing, with global VC funds reaching new highs in 2023. This study focuses on a sample of European entrepreneurial firms that received at least one VC investment between 1998 and 2015 and examines the impact of multinational VC (MVC) on startups' performance. To ensure a high level of research rigor and the reliability of the results, we address potential selection bias and endogeneity issues by employing the Heckman two-step method and the 2SLS method, with migrant stock serving as the instrumental variable. Our findings reveal that MVC significantly reduces startups' sales and return on assets, particularly in Northern and Central Europe and across both growth and decline periods. Through multiple robustness checks—including alternative model specifications, variable substitutions, and outlier control—we confirm the robustness and reliability of our results. Our findings suggest that startups fare better by seeking VC investment from a single nation.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"2334-2348"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147557466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Interplay Between Strategic Information Sharing and Quality Decision: Pre-quality Versus Post-quality","authors":"Futou Li;Yongjian Li;Wei Wang","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3647053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3647053","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the interplay between the retailer’s strategic information sharing and the manufacturer’s quality decisions under two decision sequences: pre-quality and post-quality scenarios. We analyze the retailer’s ex-post information sharing policy (deciding how to share the acquired demand information) under both sequences, discuss the impact of decision sequences on the quality level, and explore the preferences of supply chain participants for pre- and post-quality scenarios. The key findings are as follows: In the post-quality scenario, if consumers have high quality sensitivity, the retailer tends to share high-demand information but conceal low-demand information; otherwise, the result is just the opposite. Conversely, in the pre-quality scenario, the retailer consistently shares low-demand information but conceals high-demand information. Notably, whether in the pre-quality or post-quality scenario, an intriguing phenomenon may emerge, that is, the retailer may experience a counterintuitive increase in profit as the expected information cost rises. The outcomes of quality levels in pre- and post-quality scenarios depend on the information status acquired by the retailer and the consumers’ quality sensitivity. Interestingly, the retailer consistently prefers the post-quality scenario, while the manufacturer may prefer the pre-quality scenario under certain conditions. Finally, our findings remain relatively robust when considering imperfect information acquisition or a general demand distribution.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1485-1499"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146175838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance on Corporate Financial Performance: A Cross-Industry Perspective","authors":"Wei Liu;Nicholas Dacre;Hao Dong;Jiuh-Biing Sheu;Qin Zhou","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3649696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3649696","url":null,"abstract":"Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) influences corporate financial performance (CFP), though the effectiveness varies notably across industry sectors. Employing multiple linear regression and multiperiod differences-in-differences (DID), this article empirically examines the differential impacts by comparing European chemical and software industries. Our framework distinguishes between actual ESG performance metrics and voluntary ESG disclosure, and reveals distinct pathways through which sustainability practices and reporting affect CFP outcomes. We find that actual ESG performance impacts CFP more in the chemical industry than in software. Conversely, ESG disclosure, even when not reflecting true performance, provides immediate and sustained market value benefits to software companies. Despite earlier and more comprehensive non-financial reporting by chemical companies, no significant financial effects emerged in the immediate four years. Multiple robustness tests are employed to address the potential selection problem inherent in economic observational data, and the model results are interpreted with due caution. The empirical findings further advance the understanding of ESG–CFP mechanisms by revealing the complex balance between regulatory compliance, sustainability investments, and financial outcomes.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1162-1175"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145982221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On-Site or Off-Site Additive Manufacturing Spare Parts Production? An Economic and Environmental Analysis Encompassing Country Carbon Tax Policy, Energy Mix, and Availability","authors":"Mirco Peron;Srinivas Talluri","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3649531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3649531","url":null,"abstract":"Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been extensively studied for spare parts management. The literature concurs that producing AM spare parts close to the point of use (i.e., on-site) offers both economic and environmental advantages compared to off-site production, particularly when spare parts are produced through printing hubs, which is the current industrial practice. However, this might not always hold true: different countries have different energy costs and emit different amounts of CO_2-eq to produce one kWh. Consequently, it may be preferable to produce spare parts in a country having low energy costs and/or depending less on fossil fuels, even if far from the point of use (i.e., off-site). Such decisions should also consider governmental carbon-reduction schemes (e.g., carbon taxes) whereby the more a firm emits, the more it pays. However, there is a lack of research encompassing all these aspects when deciding whether to produce AM spare parts on- or off-site. This work fills this gap, identifying if and when off-site production of AM spare parts is preferable from both economic and environmental perspectives. Contrary to claims in the literature, the results show that off-site production is sometimes preferable, particularly when its unitary energy cost is lower than that of on-site production. Interestingly, due to current low carbon tax values, the on-site/off-site production decision is driven only by economic considerations. Robustness checks confirmed the findings’ reliability. Notably, adopting off-site AM production, when advantageous, results in substantial savings, as demonstrated numerically and through a case study considering 6000+ spare parts.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1176-1193"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146026444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Novel Hybrid Price Prediction Method Using Multimodal Deep Learning and LLM for New Energy Power Raw Materials","authors":"Xuhui Zhu;Muzi Li;Pingfan Xia;Hao Lei;Zhanglin Peng","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3649729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3649729","url":null,"abstract":"Accurate prediction of raw material prices helps enterprises optimize procurement, control costs, and enhance profits. Yet, the interplay of factors, such as supply and demand imbalances, market volatility, and abrupt disruptions, still poses a significant challenge. To address these challenges, in this article, we propose a novel hybrid framework for price prediction, called EFD-CBGT, that combines deep learning and large language model (LLM). First of all, we leverage LLMs internalized rich knowledge and contextual reasoning capabilities to generate high-quality textual data using interactive querying. The textual data are then converted into low-dimensional, high-value features using financial BERT and deep sparse autoencoder. Second, we employ the empirical wavelet transform to create a stationary numerical series from the most strongly correlated features of raw material prices. Finally, by incorporating a featurewise attention module, we use four deep learning models to extract local, bidirectional temporal, temporal, and global features. We conduct comparative experiments, ablation studies, significance tests, and robustness analyses on three real datasets from a leading lithium-ion battery manufacturer in China. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of EFD-CBGT.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1348-1362"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146082009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Symbolic or Substantive: An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies","authors":"Xihui Wang;Yong Zhang","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3649028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3649028","url":null,"abstract":"As corporate social responsibility (CSR) gains prominence, firms confront a strategic choice between symbolic CSR, which offers superficial signals and entails greenwashing risk, and substantive CSR, which eliminates this risk through genuine and impactful practices at a higher cost. Prior research primarily examined whether firms engage in CSR, with limited exploration on the choice between symbolic and substantive CSR once engagement is decided. This article develops a game-theoretic model to examine firms’ incentives for substantive CSR, and how these varies with market structures and relevant exogenous parameters, including price premium, greenwashing risk, and consumer boycotts. We find that firms implement substantive CSR only when the incremental marginal cost is sufficiently low, and this condition becomes more stringent under competition. Although competition discourages the adoption of substantive CSR, it increases consumer surplus and social welfare when substantive CSR is implemented. Counterintuitively, this article demonstrates that price premium and consumer boycotts do not always promote substantive CSR under competition due to strategic price interactions. Furthermore, we derive the equilibrium CSR strategy structure and identify a dynamic set of the equilibrium structures that always includes the symmetric structures. Interestingly, a prisoner’s dilemma, in which both firms implement Pareto-insufficient symbolic CSR, may arise when the set consists solely of the symmetric structures. Finally, we show that these results remain robust under model extensions and demonstrate that the presence of consumers who refuse to pay a price premium may surprisingly increase firms’ prices and profits.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1301-1315"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146026324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Digital Technology Innovation Strategies From the Perspective of Manufacturer–Logistics Provider Integration for Carbon Emission Reduction","authors":"Weihua Liu;Siyu Wang;Xiao Alison Chen;Jingxin Dong","doi":"10.1109/TEM.2025.3648753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2025.3648753","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops a game theory model of digital technology innovation (DTI) within a two-tier supply chain involving manufacturers and logistics providers, with a shared goal of carbon emission reduction. The model examines how manufacturers and logistics providers can adopt integrated innovation to enhance both carbon reduction and DTI performance while maximizing mutual benefits. The analysis yields three key findings: first, DTI does not always lead to carbon reduction within the supply chain through the integration of manufacturers and logistics providers. Instead, optimal integration strategies and responsibility allocation models should be contingent on the capabilities of manufacturers and logistics providers. Second, when logistics providers have significantly superior capabilities, they should assume full responsibility for both carbon reduction and DTI services. Conversely, when manufacturers have significantly superior capabilities, they should lead carbon reduction efforts while the logistics provider focuses on DTI. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate the robustness of the results with respect to different profit coefficients and cost-sharing ratios. Third, we extend the model to consider the carbon trading mechanism and external DTI effects on market demand and show that the findings are robust when these additional mechanisms and levers are introduced. <italic>Managerial relevance statement:</i> First, this article offers managerial guidance by introducing three integrated innovation between logistics provider and manufacturer (II-LM) models that are adaptable to diverse industrial scenarios. Engineering managers should tailor their DTI strategies to the specific conditions of their enterprises. By adopting the II-LM strategies, they can enhance collaboration and achieve both carbon reduction and DTI engineering objectives. Second, the “double benefit” effect of carbon trading can encourage policymakers to accelerate the development of carbon trading policies and market mechanisms. Finally, for United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this article contributes to SDG 9, SDG 12, and SDG 13.","PeriodicalId":55009,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management","volume":"73 ","pages":"1274-1288"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146026470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}