As of May 2021, the current COVID-19 pandemic is still plaguing the world, challenging all the countries and their health systems, globally. In this context, conditions typical of low-resource settings surfaced also in high-resource ones (e.g., the lack of essential medical equipment, of...

Background: Reverse supply chains of machinery and equipment face significant challenges, and overcoming them is critical for effective customer service and sustainable operation. Maintenance and repair services, strongly associated with the reverse movement of equipment, are among the most...

Background: The purpose of this study is to analyze the adoption and implementation of technologies related to Industry 4.0 and the integration with circular economy (CE) to minimize the effects of resource scarcity in emergency situations. Method: The study was developed in two stages: The...

Die Vorteile einer Kreislaufwirtschaft sind für die Schweiz aufgrund des beschränkten Ressourcenvorkommens besonders gross. Die Resultate der vorliegenden Studie zeigen jedoch, dass der Transformationsprozess auf Unternehmensebene noch nicht weit fortgeschritten ist. Zudem gibt es Hinweise,...

Background: This research aims to identify how blockchain technology could support the ecological embeddedness of the coffee supply chain. Ecological embeddedness is a subset of the circular economy (CE) that demands legitimacy through design changes to product, production and/or packaging for...

Consumer return policies have been long recognized and studied by operations management scholars as an important managerial lever in a retail environment. Yet, the behavioral aspects of return policy decision-making and interaction of return policy decisions with other common operational...

The continuous growth of e-waste necessitates an efficient method to recover their metal contents to improve their recycling rate. The successful recovery of the metallic component from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) can generate great economic benefits to incentivize the...

Background: The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector contributes significantly to the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of a country. This has therefore led to the growth in importance of reverse logistics (RL) since the FMCG sector cannot avoid RL. It is therefore important for the sector...