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A collaborative decision-making model for collecting unused medications in an environmentally responsible pharmaceutical supply chain

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Abstract

Storage of unused medications at consumer zones could endanger both public health and the environment. Many pharmaceutical companies invest in collection of unwanted medications to improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) in pharmaceutical sector. This paper proposes a novel method for collaborative decision-making on order quantity and CSR investment within a pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) consisting of a pharma-supplier and a pharma-retailer. A new index is proposed to assess CSR performance level in the PSC according to customers’ willingness to return their unused drugs. In addition to proposing decentralized and centralized models, a new collaborative decision-making method is developed for coordinating order quantity and CSR investment, thereby optimizing the entire PSC profitability while guaranteeing both PSC actors' participation. Eventually, computational outcomes of the models and managerial insights are presented. The findings suggest that the PSC members in the collaboration model offer a greater incentive to customers to return their unused medicines compared to the decentralized setting. Moreover, the proposed collaboration policy considers the financial goals of independent PSC players, thus resulting in a win–win partnership. Therefore, the proposed collaborative model is highly beneficial for the PSC both economically and environmentally. Moreover, when the profit margin of pharma-supplier is high compared to that of the pharma-retailer, the total amount of collected unused medicines in the collaboration model becomes even larger than that of the centralized model.

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Acknowledgements

Would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments on our paper, which helped us improve the quality of our research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    M. Nematollahi

  2. School of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, University Road, Hengam Street, Resalat Square, Narmak, Tehran, Iran

    S.-M. Hosseini-Motlagh

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  1. M. Nematollahi
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  2. S.-M. Hosseini-Motlagh
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Correspondence to S.-M. Hosseini-Motlagh.

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Editorial responsibility: Dibyendu Sarkar.

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Nematollahi, M., Hosseini-Motlagh, SM. A collaborative decision-making model for collecting unused medications in an environmentally responsible pharmaceutical supply chain. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 19, 1907–1924 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03332-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03332-z

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