Green reverse supply chain management and a conceptual model for customer participation for returning the EOL product

Abstract

Environmental issues and resource depletion caused producers to follow up an extended producer responsibility (EPR) to improve their reverse supply chain management. Currently many companies use reverse supply chain management (RSC) to return their end of life (EOL) products from their customers for environmental purposes such as: reuse, refurbishment or repair and recycling. Recently, researcher are investigating the new methods to improve the quality of RSC in protecting the environment and saving the resources. Despite RSC needs interaction between producers and their customers but companies and researchers mainly focused on activities in manufacturing while the customer’s role for returning EOL products is not explicit yet and customers are not considered as a key player in RSC. This study would propose a conceptual model for investigating the important factors that influence customers’ participation intention in RSC through returning EOL products. This is an interdisciplinary study which connects the RSC and customers behavioural intention for solving environmental problem and resource scarcity. The theory of planned behaviour is used as a spanning theory for this research.