On the morning of June 19, 2025, CUFE Business School successfully held the 17th Session of 2025 Excellent Academic Forum in Conference Room 615 of the Main Teaching Building at the Xueyuan South Road Campus. Professor Chunming Shi was invited as the keynote speaker for this lecture. Teachers and postgraduate students of CUFE Business School participated in the event.
The lecture was hosted by Professor Yan Nina from the Supply Chain Management Department of CUFE Business School. Before the lecture, Professor Yan briefly introduced Professor Chunming Shi’s background. Dr. Chunming Shi holds a PhD in Operations Management from Washington State University (USA), a Master’s degree in Engineering from National University (USA), and a double Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Business Administration from the University of Science and Technology of China. He is currently a Tenured Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Dr. Shi has served twice as the Chair of the Management Science Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada and has also acted as the Guest Editor for special issues of several top academic journals.
The theme of Professor Chunming Shi’s lecture was "Partial Centralization in a Durable-Good Supply Chain". Most supply chain management studies assume that the supply chain structure is either fully centralized or fully decentralized, while ignoring the commonly seen partial centralization structure in reality. Partial centralization refers to a scenario where an enterprise holds partial (rather than full) ownership of its partner. To fill this research gap, this study analyzes a durable-good supply chain context in which a manufacturer owns a portion of the equity in its downstream retailer. The study found three key results:
1.The partially centralized structure can serve as an equilibrium structure for durable-good supply chains;
2.The optimal ownership ratio of the manufacturer in the retailer decreases with the increase in product durability and the extension of the decision cycle. This implies that when products are more durable or the decision cycle is longer, the fully decentralized structure is more likely to become the equilibrium form of the supply chain;
3.Finally, the study explores the research direction of strategic benefits brought by enterprise and supply chain centralization.
After the lecture, teachers and students present conducted lively discussions around the theme shared by Professor Chunming Shi, further deepening the exchange between academia and practice.
The "Excellent Academic Forum" is an academic exchange platform established by CUFE Business School to fulfill its mission of "contributing new management knowledge". It aims to focus on cutting-edge theoretical issues in the field of business administration and organizational development dilemmas in Chinese enterprise management practice, gather cutting-edge ideas and innovative perspectives at home and abroad, and explore Chinese solutions for China’s social and economic development.
