Bargaining in competing supply chains with uncertainty

Substantial literature has been devoted to supply chain coordination. The majority of this literature ignores competition between supply chains. Moreover, a significant part of this literature focuses on coordination that induce the supply chain members to follow strategies that produce the equilibria chosen by a vertically integrated supply chain. This paper investigates the equilibrium behavior of two competing supply chains in the presence of demand uncertainty. We consider joint pricing and quantity decisions and competition under three possible supply chain strategies: Vertical Integration (VI), Manufacturer’s Stackelberg (MS), and Bargaining on the Wholesale price (BW(α), α is the bargaining parameter) over a single or infinitely many periods. We show that, in contrast to earlier literature, using VIVI (VI in both chains) is the unique Nash Equilibrium over one period decision, while using MSMS or BW(α)BW(α) may be Nash Equilibrium over infinitely many periods.     

Pricing and advertisement in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain

We use a game theoretical approach to study pricing and advertisement decisions in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain when price discounts are offered by both the manufacturer and retailer. When the manufacturer is the leader of the game, we obtained Stackelberg equilibrium with manufacturer’s local allowance, national brand name investment, manufacturer’s preferred price discount, retailer’s price discount, and local advertising expense. For the special case of two-stage equilibrium when the manufacturer’s price discount is exogenous, we found that the retailer is willing to increase local advertising expense if the manufacturer increases local advertising allowance and provides deeper price discount, or if the manufacturer decreases its brand name investment. When both the manufacturer and retailer have power, Nash equilibrium in a competition game is obtained. The comparison between the Nash equilibrium and Stackelberg equilibrium shows that the manufacturer always prefers Stackelberg equilibrium, but there is no definitive conclusion for the retailer. The bargaining power can be used to determine the profit sharing between the manufacturer and the retailer. Once the profit sharing is determined, we suggest a simple contract to help the manufacturer and retailer obtain their desired profit sharing.     

基于风险厌恶零售商的双渠道闭环供应链运作策略

在对称信息框架下,针对零售商存在风险厌恶特性的双渠道闭环供应链,基于Stackelberg博弈理论探讨了不同的回收再制造模式下(制造商不回收再制造、制造商独立回收再制造、制造商依托零售商回收再制造)供应链各主体的运作决策。研究发现,在不同回收再制造模式下,制造商与风险厌恶的零售商合作能够获得更多收益。市场波动的增大对供应链各主体并非始终是有害的,随着市场波动的增大,带有风险厌恶的零售商收益不断减小,而风险中性的双渠道制造商收益逐步增大,零售商风险厌恶特性为制造商带来了更多的收益。制造商独立回收再制造以及通过零售商进行回收再制造时,双渠道产品定价均低于不进行任何回收再制造模式下的定价,双渠道需求和利润均高于不进行任何回收再制造模式下的渠道需求和利润,即回收再制造模式不仅为下游顾客带来了更多的消费实惠,同时也为供应链各主体带来了更多的收益。     

Pricing and effort investment for a newsvendor-type product

We investigate a dominant retailer’s optimal joint strategy of pricing and timing of effort investment and analyze how it influences the decision of the manufacturer, the total supply chain profit, and the consumers’ payoff. We consider two pricing schemes of the retailer, namely, dollar markup and percentage markup, and two effort-investment sequences, namely, ex-ante and ex-post. A combination of four cases is analyzed. Our results show that: (1) under the same effort-decision sequence, a percentage-markup pricing scheme leads to higher expected profit for the retailer and the whole supply chain, but a lower expected profit for the manufacturer and a higher retail price for the consumers; (2) under the same markup-pricing strategy, the dominant retailer always prefers to postpone her effort decision until the manufacturer makes a commitment to wholesale price, since it can result in a Pareto-improvement for all the supply chain members. That is, the retailer’s and manufacturer’s expected profits are higher and the consumers pay a lower retail price; and (3) among the four joint strategies, the dominant retailer always prefers the joint strategy of percentage-markup plus ex-post effort decision. However, the dominated manufacturer always prefers the joint strategy of dollar-markup plus ex-post effort decision, which is also beneficial to the end consumers.     

顾客策略行为下基于联合促销努力的风险规避供应链协调模型

本文在考虑顾客策略行为情形下,利用条件风险度量准则建立了带有联合促销努力供应链协调模型,研究了风险规避对销售商和供应商决策行为的影响,得到了如下研究结论:(1)集中决策情形,价格承诺策略既可以激励供应商提高生产量,还能够有效降低顾客策略行为对其产生的负面影响。(2)分散决策情形,销售商风险规避度增大,销售商的订购量将增加,供应商的销售努力也将增加;供应商风险规避度增大,销售商的订购量将减小,供应商的销售努力也将减小;无论供应商和销售商的风险规避如何变化,销售商的销售努力不变。(3)利用回购和成本分担组成的混合契约可以实现供应链完美协调。     

Optimal co-investment in supply chain infrastructure

This paper considers co-investment in a supply chain infrastructure using an inter-temporal model. We assume that firms’ capital is essentially the supply chain’s infrastructure. As a result, firms’ policies consist in selecting an optimal level of employment as well as the level of co-investment in the supply chain infrastructure. Several applications and examples are presented and open-loop, as well as feedback solutions are found for non-cooperating firms, long- and short-run investment cooperation and non-simultaneous moves (Stackelberg) firms. In particular, we show that a solution based on Nash and Stackelberg differential games provides the same level of capital investment. Thus, selecting the leader and the follower in a co-investment program does not matter. We show that in general, co-investments by firms vary both over time and across firms, and thereby render difficult the implementation of co-investment programs for future capital development. To overcome this problem, we derive conditions for firms’ investment share to remain unchanged over time and thus be easily planned.     

两阶段供应链联合服务定价决策和渠道策略

探讨了垂直整合、纳什整合、制造商Stackelberg以及零售商Stackelberg四个渠道策略中两阶段供应链的均衡行为.研究在服务水平同时决定和按顺序决定服务水平两种情况下四个渠道策略价格和服务水平策略的决定.将零售商的价格以及制造商和零售商的服务水平构建了一个确定性需求函数,探讨不同的渠道策略中制造商和零售商的最优配置.结果表明,垂直整合主导了其他策略,代表了最高的服务水平.研究结果为供应链成员最优服务水平以及渠道选择提供参考.     

Joint pricing-servicing decision and channel strategies in the supply chain

This paper investigates the equilibrium behavior of a two-echelon supply chain in four channel strategies: (i) vertical integration, (ii) vertical Nash (iii) manufacturer’s Stackelberg and (vi) retailer’s Stackelberg. We examine the price and service level decision for each of the above four channel strategies in two cases: (i) Simultaneous service-level decision: Here, the manufacturer and retailer simultaneously choose a service level. (ii) Sequentially service-level decision: Here, the manufacturer and retailer sequentially choose a service level. We model the demand as a deterministic linear function of retailer’s price and both manufacturer’s and retailer’s service levels. We discuss the optimal configuration from each individual’s perspective for each of the above channel strategies. We show that vertical integration dominates other strategies and leads to the highest service level but lowest retail price among various channel coordination policies considered here. We yield several conclusions about the provision of service level by each supply chain individual to coordinate the channel.     

基于最优让步均衡协调策略的供应链差价补偿机制研究

制造商为了激励零售商订购更多数量的产品,会在产品零售价下调时提供给零售商一定的补偿,如何制定最优补偿机制是提高供应链收益的关键问题。为此,建立了两阶段销售差价补偿机制下制造商与零售商的博弈模型,分析了纳什均衡解和Stackelberg均衡解下制造商对零售商的差价补偿机制的决策行为,导出了在最优让步均衡策略下差价补偿机制定量关系,并提出了求解给定差价补偿系数下的近似最优让步均衡策略的算法。通过智能产品算例的分析,表明差价补偿机制能提高供应链的期望收益,增加零售商的订购量,进一步,说明差价补偿机制可以有效地改善零供关系。     

基于“进场费+收益共享”契约的供应链协调策略研究

在超市等自助零售环境下,影响产品需求的往往是产品的感知质量,而产品感知质量不仅取决于产品质量水平,还受货架空间展示量的影响。本文基于价格和感知质量依赖的需求函数,分别建立了一体化供应链集中决策模型以及考虑是否存在进场费的寄售契约下零售商主导的Stackelberg博弈模型,研究了制造商和零售商的产品定价和货架空间展示策略,并给出了进场费+收益共享的供应链协调策略。研究结果表明分散供应链环境下产品的最优零售价格并不总高于集中决策下产品的最优定价,也就是说提升感知质量在一定程度上可以缓解双重边际效应。另外,收取进场费的收益共享模式可以实现供应链的完美协调,这在理论上说明了进场费模式在一定的市场环境下是合理的。