Recently, Professor Zuo Li from our institute, along with collaborators Professor Song Peijian from Nanjing University Business School, and Professors Xiaosong (David) Peng and Eric (Er) Fang from the University of Delaware, published a research paper titled “Product Personalization and Brand Retailer Performance: The Critical Role of Brand Retailer-Upstream Supplier Control” in the prestigious journal Journal of Operations Management, with Professor Zuo as the corresponding author.

 In today's market, brand retailers increasingly offer product personalization services to meet individual customer needs. This study focuses on product personalization from the perspective of brand retailers. In the context of product personalization, brand retailers outsourcing production to upstream suppliers face two significant challenges: product returns from downstream customers and personalization costs charged by upstream suppliers. The study finds that as product demand increases, personalization costs rise, but the likelihood of product returns decreases; conversely, as time demand increases, the likelihood of product returns rises. Additionally, relationship-specific process controls intensify the impact of product demand on personalization costs and the impact of time demand on product return likelihood. Finally, relationship-specific outcome controls and transaction-specific controls mitigate the effect of time demand on product return likelihood while exacerbating the impact of product demand on personalization costs. The findings suggest that retailers can gain greater benefits from product personalization by selecting control mechanisms that align with personalization demands.

The Journal of Operations Management is one of the top academic journals selected by the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD 24) and is also recognized as one of the Financial Times' top 50 business school journals (FT50). It is rated as a 4-star journal by the Association of Business Schools (ABS) and holds a high academic reputation in the international management field, making it an A+ journal for our institute.