Channel leadership and recycling channel in closed-loop supply chain: The case of recycling price by the recycling party

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Due to the fast growing of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the business values of closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) have been well recognized. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the CLSCs under different combinations of the recycling channel and the channel leadership when the recycling price is determined by the recycling party. Specially, we consider a CLSC consisting of two channel members, i.e., a manufacturer and a retailer. Each member acting as the channel leader has three different channels to collect the used products, and they are (ⅰ) the manufacturer (M-channel), (ⅱ) the retailer (R-channel) and (ⅲ) the third-party (T-channel). Given the recycling party determines the recycling price, mathematical models are developed to investigate the performance of the CLSC under different combinations of the channel leadership and the recycling channel. Through a comparison analysis, we find that M-channel is the most effective recycling channel. Moreover, once the M-channel be adopted, the retailer-led structure is as good as manufacture-led structure. We find that the recycling channel structure could be more important than the channel leadership in the CLSC. Finally, we illustrate that the CLSC can be coordinated by a two-part tariff contract.</p>