Effects of knowledge spillover on inter-organizational resource sharing decision in collaborative knowledge creation

Collaborative knowledge creation is important for firms to gain new competitive advantages, but knowledge outgoing spillover harms their existing competitive advantages, which puts them into a dilemma when investing R&D resources. This study formalizes and investigates this dilemma using the Stackelberg leader–follower framework. Through our analyses, we find that, (1) current knowledge creation efforts and prior knowledge are substitutable in collaborative knowledge creation, and through controlling the ratio of current knowledge creation efforts to prior knowledge invested, the leader and the follower can gain benefits from collaboration and restrict knowledge outgoing spillover simultaneously; (2) because the leader invests resources first and faces moral hazards, it has the incentives to participate in collaborative knowledge creation only when its benefits from collaborative knowledge creation fruits and knowledge incoming spillover are bigger than those of the follower, and the more moral hazards it confronts, the more it demands; (3) the leader and the follower invest resources at ratios consistent with the benefits and costs the resources bring to them if they can determine the amount, or the collaboration is unstable.     

A robust model for a leader–follower competitive facility location problem in a discrete space

This paper aims at determining the optimal locations for the leader’s new facilities under the condition that the number of the follower’s new facilities is unknown for the leader. The leader and the follower have some facilities in advance. The first competitor, the leader, opens p new facilities in order to increase her own market share. On the other hand, she knows that her competitor, the follower, will react to her action and locate his new facilities as well. The number of the follower’s new facilities is unknown for the leader but it is assumed that the leader knows the probability of opening different numbers of the follower’s new facilities. The leader aims at maximizing her own market share after the follower’s new facilities entry. The follower’s objective is also to maximize his own market share. Since the number of the follower’s new facilities is unknown for leader, “Robust Optimization” is used for maximizing the leader’s market share and making the obtained results “robust” in various scenarios in terms of different numbers of the follower’s new facilities. The optimal locations for new facilities of both the leader and the follower are chosen among pre-determined potential locations. It is assumed that the demand is inelastic. The customers probabilistically meet their demands from all different facilities and the demand level which is met by each facility is computed by Huff rule. The computational experiments have been applied to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed model.     

On the complexity of the (r|p)-centroid problem in the plane

In the (r∣p)-centroid problem, two players, called leader and follower, open facilities to service clients. We assume that clients are identified with their location on the Euclidean plane, and facilities can be opened anywhere in the plane. The leader opens p facilities. Later on, the follower opens r facilities. Each client patronizes the closest facility. In case of ties, the leader’s facility is preferred. The goal is to find p facilities for the leader to maximize his market share. We show that this Stackelberg game is \(\varSigma_{2}^{P}\) -hard. Moreover, we strengthen the previous results for the discrete case and networks. We show that the game is \(\varSigma_{2}^{P}\) -hard even for planar graphs for which the weights of the edges are Euclidean distances between vertices.     

Profit maximizing coalitions with shared capacities in distribution networks

We study the distribution network structure of multiple firms in the context of demand sensitivity to market offers. The problem consists in determining the profitability of horizontal collaboration between firms in a collaborative distribution schema. It considers the case of a set of regional distribution centers (DCs) where each DC is initially dedicated solely to one firm’s distribution activities and studies when it is beneficial that the DC owners collaborate through sharing their storage-throughput capacity. Such strategic decisions are made in order to improve the distribution capabilities of firms in terms of response time and cost-efficiency compared to the stand-alone situation. The problem is modeled as a coalition formation game in a cooperative framework, and we propose a collaborative distribution game with profit maximization. Three sharing mechanisms are modeled and tested: egalitarian allocation, proportional allocation, and Shapley value. The collaboration decision conditions for a given firm are analytically derived according to the sharing method considered and used to enhance the solution approach. Our numerical results clearly highlight the impact of this innovative collaboration opportunity on the firms’ performance in terms of distribution cost savings and revenue increases. An observed behavior is that the formation of several sub-coalitions prevails over the formation of a grand coalition, and that different cost sharing methods can lead to different sub-coalitions. We also provide managerial insights on the appropriate size of a coalition in various business instances tested, and on the key drivers that foster horizontal collaborative behavior among firms.     

信息非对称环境下产业创新平台多方主体博弈分析

研究产业创新平台在多方主体模式下的协同合作策略问题。我国产业创新平台发展时间较短,部分平台系统的资源共享和服务能力处于“弱势”,但通过多方主体协同合作能有效提升平台系统的技术创新水平,所以主体间的博弈会影响平台系统的存续质量与运行效率。基于此,本文构建了信息非对称环境下“产业链相关企业-各类研究型机构-政府管理部门”主要三方主体的静态博弈模型,从利益实现机制出发,强化各方主体在产业创新平台运行中的理性,以破解产业创新平台运行效率低下困局。研究表明,企业、研究机构和政府管理部门是否会严格遵循契约治理规范自身行为主要取决于各自的资源共享力度、资源共享成本以及资源共享的收益。     

Pure strategy Nash equilibria and the probabilistic prospects of Stackelberg players

We consider the set of all m×n bimatrix games with ordinal payoffs. We show that on the subset E of such games possessing at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium, both players prefer the role of leader to that of follower in the corresponding Stackelberg games. This preference is in the sense of first-degree stochastic dominance by leader payoffs of follower payoffs. It follows easily that on the complement of E, the follower’s role is preferred in the same sense. Thus we see a tendency for leadership preference to obtain in the presence of multiple pure strategy Nash equilibria in the underlying game.     

师徒制知识共享敌意的演化趋势研究

师徒制知识共享作为组织内知识转移,尤其是隐性知识转移的重要方式,却在组织内更多以知识囤积或知识排斥的知识共享敌意形式存在。基于师徒制知识共享敌意的效用分析,采用复制动态的非对称演化博弈刻画了组织内师徒制知识共享敌意的演化趋势。研究发现,当师傅群成员知识囤积的负效用超过其正效用、且徒弟群成员知识排斥的负效用大于其所付出的成本时,才能通过有效降低师徒制知识共享敌意来提高师徒制知识共享对组织的贡献程度;组织采用一定的激励机制对于降低师徒制知识共享敌意的发生效果显著。     

基于动机的联合风险投资收益分配契约设计(A2016-0158)

从联合风险投资的领导者采取联合投资的动机出发,考虑分配给跟随者的收益份额是否能达到目的,运用优化理论建立了联合投资双方的收益分配模型,提出了联合风险投资机构之间的收益分配契约设计的一种可供参考的方法,并用实例说明了模型方法的应用。研究还表明,潜在的市场竞争可能对领导者造成的损失越大,领导者越愿意给予跟随者更多的收益份额;当项目质量信息的不确定性越高,单独投资将存在较大风险的时候,为了获得项目质量信息的补充,也使得领导者愿意给予跟随者更多的收益份额。     

A two-level evolutionary algorithm for solving the facility location and design (1|1)-centroid problem on the plane with variable demand

In this work, the problem of a company or chain (the leader) that considers the reaction of a competitor chain (the follower) is studied. In particular, the leader wants to set up a single new facility in a planar market where similar facilities of the follower, and possibly of its own chain, are already present. The follower will react by locating another single facility after the leader locates its own facility. Both the location and the quality (representing design, quality of products, prices, etc.) of the new leader’s facility have to be found. The aim is to maximize the profit obtained by the leader considering the future follower’s entry. The demand is supposed to be concentrated at n demand points. Each demand point splits its buying power among the facilities proportionally to the attraction it feels for them. The attraction of a demand point for a facility depends on both the location and the quality of the facility. Usually, the demand is considered in the literature to be fixed or constant regardless the conditions of the market. In this paper, the demand varies depending on the attraction for the facilities. Taking variable demand into consideration makes the model more realistic. However, it increases the complexity of the problem and, therefore, the computational effort needed to solve it. Three heuristic methods are proposed to cope with this hard-to-solve global optimization problem, namely, a grid search procedure, a multistart algorithm and a two-level evolutionary algorithm. The computational studies show that the evolutionary algorithm is both the most robust algorithm and the one that provides the best results.     

Co-op advertising models in manufacturer–retailer supply chains: A game theory approach

In the literature of cooperative (co-op) advertising, the focus of research is on a relationship in which a manufacturer is the leader and retailers are followers. This relationship implies the dominance of the manufacturer over retailers. Recent market structure reviews have shown a shift of retailing power from manufacturers to retailers. Retailers have equal or even greater power than a manufacturer when it comes to retailing. Based on this new market phenomenon, we intend to explore the role of vertical co-op advertising efficiency with respect to transactions between a manufacturer and a retailer through brand name investments, local advertising expenditures, and sharing rules of advertising expenses. Three co-op advertising models are discussed which are based on two noncooperative games and one cooperative game. In a leader–follower noncooperative game, the manufacturer is assumed to be a leader who first specifies the brand name investment and the co-op subsidization policy. The retailer, as a follower, then decides on the local advertising level. In a noncooperative simultaneous move game, the manufacturer and the retailer are assumed to act simultaneously and independently. In a cooperative game, the system profit is maximized for every Pareto efficient co-op advertising scheme, but not for any other schemes. All Pareto efficient co-op advertising schemes are associated with a single local advertising level and a single brand name investment level, but with variable sharing policies of advertising expenses. The best Pareto efficient advertising scheme is obtained taking members' risk attitudes into account. Utilizing the Nash bargaining model, we discuss two situations that (a) both members are risk averse, and (b) both members are risk neutral. Our results are consistent with the bargaining literature.     

Optimal business policies for a supplier–transporter–buyer channel with a price-sensitive demand

As the third party logistics partners (carriers) taking a more and more significant role in supply chain practices and customer service performance improvement, there is an emerging need for the studies on optimal channel coordination policies for business processes involving not only supplier and buyer (retailer), but also transportation partners. In this paper, we explicitly add a transportation partner with concave cost functions into the analysis for supplier–buyer channel coordination policies, and analyse the impact of coordination and pricing policies on supply chain profitability. The market demand is assumed to be a decreasing convex function of buyer's selling price (x), D(x)=d/x². Under this assumption, we quantify the improvement on total supply chain profitability when moving from a non-cooperative environment to a fully cooperative environment, and show that the joint annual profit of three partners in a cooperative environment can be at least twice of what may be achieved by three independently operated companies in a leader–follower business game. While in a real-world business environment, a perfect collaboration is hard to achieve, this result can be used to provide a quick estimation on the upper bound on the budget for profit sharing or discount offers among the supply chain partners.     

Closed-loop Stackelberg solution to a multistage linear-quadratic game

A new solution of a two-person, nonzero-sum Stackelberg game, with linear dynamics, quadratic performance criteion, and closed-loop information available to both players, is presented. This solution is applicable to all problems where the leader is able to influence the objective function of the follower, and this function is strictly convex with respect to the control variable handled by the follower. The resulting equilibrium strategies adapt to the possible nonoptimal behavior of players at some stages of the game. The strategy of the leader has a simple interpretation of a threat formulated by the leader toward the follower and, if necessary, carried out one stage after the follower has played inconsistently with the leader's wishes.     

企业社会责任下的旅游供应链低碳运营研究

针对由一低碳景区和一旅行社构成的低碳旅游供应链,考虑了供应链成员企业社会责任行为对供应链动态均衡的影响,构建了企业社会责任行为下的低碳旅游供应链微分博弈模型。研究发现:旅游企业应在消费者低碳偏好增加的同时提高低碳决策水平;成本分担合同的制定需满足一定的条件,且只有在一定条件下,供应链企业社会责任的增加会提高成本分担比例,而消费者低碳偏好的增加降低了成本分担比例;成本分担模式下,主导者的企业社会责任直接提升了自身的决策水平,间接提升了跟随者的决策水平,提高了成本分担比例;企业社会责任偏好不会改变成本分担合同的有效性。     

Advertising coordination games of a manufacturer and a retailer while introducing a new product

Two kinds of vertical cooperative advertising program are considered in a distribution channel constituted by a manufacturer and a retailer, where the manufacturer pays part of the retailer’s advertising costs. In the first participation scheme, the manufacturer chooses his/her advertising participation rate in the retailer’s advertising effort and then each player determines the advertising effort that maximizes his/her profit. In the second scheme, the retailer chooses the manufacturer’s participation rate and then the manufacturer determines the advertising efforts of both players with the objective of maximizing the manufacturer’s profit. Each participation scheme corresponds to a special Stackelberg game: the manufacturer is the leader of the first, while the retailer is the leader of the second. The Stackelberg equilibrium advertising efforts and participation rate in both games are provided. Then the equilibrium strategies of the two players in the analyzed scenarios are compared with the Nash equilibrium in the competitive framework. Finally, the conditions which suggest a special kind of agreement to a player are analyzed. This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research and the University of Padua.     

Collaboration and sharing mechanisms in improving corporate social responsibility

This paper investigates the effects of the collaboration between an upstream and a downstream firm regarding their decisions of prices and levels of corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. The firms collaborate with each other by sharing their costs or benefits to improve their profitabilities and CSR performances. Three collaborative models are developed for considering that collaboration may be undertaken by either or both firms, and each model has both profit- and cost-sharing mechanisms. We derive and characterize the consumer valuation and the firms’ decisions at equilibrium with respect to the changes in the sharing scheme, and further identify the impacts of each sharing mechanism. Moreover, a Nash bargaining game is developed for examining the choices of sharing scheme under the negotiation between the firms. Finally, we provide economic and managerial insights for socially concerned companies.     

Bilevel linear programming with ambiguous objective function of the follower

Bilevel linear optimization problems are the linear optimization problems with two sequential decision steps of the leader and the follower. In this paper, we focus on the ambiguity of coefficients of the follower in his objective function that hinder the leader from exactly calculating the rational response of the follower. Under the assumption that the follower’s possible range of the ambiguous coefficient vector is known as a certain convex polytope, the leader can deduce the possible set of rational responses of the follower. The leader further assumes that the follower’s response is the worst-case scenario to his objective function, and then makes a decision according to the maximin criteria. We thus formulate the bilevel linear optimization problem with ambiguous objective function of the follower as a special kind of three-level programming problem. In our formulation, we show that the optimal solution locates on the extreme point and propose a solution method based on the enumeration of possible rational responses of the follower. A numerical example is used to illustrate our proposed computational method.     

基于公平关切的网络零售商店内推介策略研究

研究了公平关切下网络零售商店内推介策略选择问题。首先,以无公平关切模型为基准,发现无公平关切情形下两零售商均采取推介策略。其次,考虑跟随者(零售商2)公平关切,发现在信息不对称情况下,随着零售商2公平关切程度的增大均衡推介策略依次为:都不推介、仅跟随者(零售商2)推介和都推介,由于信息的不对称公平关切能够诱导跟随者采取推介策略;在信息对称情况下,随着公平关切程度的增大均衡推介策略依次为:仅领导者(零售商1)推介和都推介,信息的透明化能够促使领导型零售商采取推介策略。最后,分析了两零售商都公平关切情形下均衡推介策略选择问题。     

Backward induction algorithm for a class of closed-loop Stackelberg games

In the paper a new deterministic continuum-strategy two-player discrete-time dynamic Stackelberg game is proposed with fixed finite time duration and closed-loop information structure. The considered payoff functions can be widely used in different applications (mainly in conflicts of consuming a limited resource, where one player, called leader, is a superior authority choosing strategy first, and another player, called follower, chooses after).     

A Bilevel p-median model for the planning and protection of critical facilities

The bilevel p-median problem for the planning and protection of critical facilities involves a static Stackelberg game between a system planner (defender) and a potential attacker. The system planner determines firstly where to open p critical service facilities, and secondly which of them to protect with a limited protection budget. Following this twofold action, the attacker decides which facilities to interdict simultaneously, where the maximum number of interdictions is fixed. Partial protection or interdiction of a facility is not possible. Both the defender’s and the attacker’s actions have deterministic outcome; i.e., once protected, a facility becomes completely immune to interdiction, and an attack on an unprotected facility destroys it beyond repair. Moreover, the attacker has perfect information about the location and protection status of facilities; hence he would never attack a protected facility. We formulate a bilevel integer program (BIP) for this problem, in which the defender takes on the leader’s role and the attacker acts as the follower. We propose and compare three different methods to solve the BIP. The first method is an optimal exhaustive search algorithm with exponential time complexity. The second one is a two-phase tabu search heuristic developed to overcome the first method’s impracticality on large-sized problem instances. Finally, the third one is a sequential solution method in which the defender’s location and protection decisions are separated. The efficiency of these three methods is extensively tested on 75 randomly generated instances each with two budget levels. The results show that protection budget plays a significant role in maintaining the service accessibility of critical facilities in the worst-case interdiction scenario.     

Stackelberg博弈均衡点的存在性及通有存在性

针对具有一个领导者和一个跟随者的Stackelberg博弈模型,考虑两种情况:(i)没有凸性条件；(ii)没有凸性条件且减弱连续性.并利用非线性分析方法,证明了在这两种情况下的Stackelberg博弈均衡点的存在性及通有存在性的结论,这些结论改进了Basar T,Olsder G J的结论[1].