Strategic transfer pricing in a marketing–operations interface with quality level and advertising dependent goodwill

Determining an appropriate transfer price is of importance to a firm composed of divisional profit centers since it significantly affects decision-makings of each profit center and then the firm׳s profit. In this paper, we investigate the effects of negotiated and administered transfer pricing on the profits of each center and the firm based on a differential game involving an operations department and a marketing department within a firm. The operations department is responsible for the quality improvement of a particular product and sells this product to end customers through the marketing department who controls the retail price and advertising effort. Our results suggest that compared with the administered transfer price, the negotiation between the operations department and the marketing department leads to a higher transfer price, and then a higher retail price, lower advertising effort and higher quality improvement effort. What׳s more, the decentralized departments can be coordinated by a committed dynamic transfer price of the operations department, and both departments and the firm can benefit from this coordination.     

Supply Chain Strategies and International Tax Arbitrage

What motivates the geographic footprint of the supply chains that multinational firms (MNFs) deploy? Traditional research in the operations and supply chain management literature tends to recommend locations primarily based on differentials in production costs and the ramifications of physical distance ignoring the role of taxation. MNFs that strategically position parts of their supply chains in low‐tax locations can allocate the profits across the divisions to improve post‐tax profits. For the profit allocation to be defensible to tax authorities, the divisional operations must possess real decision authority and bear meaningful risks. Generally speaking, the greater the transfer of risk and control, the larger the allowable allocation of profit. These transfers may also create inefficiencies due to misalignment of business goals and attitudes toward risk. We model these trade‐offs in the context of placing in a low‐tax region a subsidiary that oversees product distribution (as a limited risk distributor commissionnaire, limited risk distributor, or fully fledged distributor). Our analysis demonstrates that the MNF's preferences regarding the operating structures are not necessarily an obvious ordering based on the amount of risk and decision authority transferred to the division in the low‐tax jurisdiction. We derive and analyze threshold values of the performance parameters that describe the main trade‐offs involved in selecting an operating structure. We find some of the optimal decisions to exhibit interesting non‐monotone behavior. For instance, profits can increase when the tax rate in the low‐tax jurisdiction increases. Numerical analysis shows that the Limited‐Risk Distributor structure is rarely optimal and quantifies when each alternative dominates it.     

需求与提前期不确定下的生产—销售协调

考虑一个按订单生产企业,其需求同时取决于价格和提前期。在企业内部,销售部门进行定价决策,生产部门则进行订货和提前期的决策。文中将生产及销售部门之间的相互作用表示成一个Nash博弈模型,并证明了纯策略均衡的存在性和唯一性。此外,提出了一个能够协调生产和销售部门决策的机制。最后,通过数值分析讨论了各参数对部门均衡决策的影响以及企业不需要运用协调机制的条件。     

具广告效应的闭环供应链协调性能研究

构建了一个具广告效应的闭环供应链博弈模型,研究广告效应对闭环供应链节点企业决策,以及闭环供应链协调性能的影响。首先,在集中决策、分散决策和广告合作决策三种决策模式下,分别探讨了节点企业的广告投入量、回收率和广告分担率决策,然后,分析了广告效应对各决策变量和利润的影响,最后,运用数值方法,从渠道效率和制造商/零售商收益分配比两方面考察了广告合作对闭环供应链的协调性能。主要结论为:1)广告合作可以增加广告投入量、回收率和节点企业的利润,从而实现闭环供应链的协调;2)节点企业的最优广告投入量、广告分担率、回收率和利润均与广告效应正相关;3)广告合作策略极大地提升了闭环供应链的渠道运作效率,降低了制造商/零售商的收益分配比。随着广告效应的增大,渠道运作效率会逐渐降低,而制造商/和零售商的收益分配比会逐渐升高。     

Revenue‐Sharing vs. Wholesale‐Price Contracts in Assembly Systems with Random Demand

Assembly and kitting operations, as well as jointly sold products, are rather basic yet intriguing A decentralized supply chains, where achieving coordination through appropriate incentives is very important, especially when demand is uncertain. We investigate two very distinct types of arrangements between an assembler/retailer and its suppliers. One scheme is a vendor‐managed inventory with revenue sharing, and the other a wholesale‐price driven contract. In the VMI case, each supplier faces strategic uncertainty as to the amounts of components, which need to be mated with its own, that other suppliers will deliver. We explore the resulting components' delivery quantities equilibrium in this decentralized supply chain and its implications for participants' and system's expected profits. We derive the revenue shares the assembler should select in order to maximize its own profits. We then explore a revenue‐plus‐surplus‐subsidy incentive scheme, where, in addition to a share of revenue, the assembler also provides a subsidy to component suppliers for their unsold components. We show that, by using this two‐parameter contract, the assembler can achieve channel coordination and increase the profits of all parties involved. We then explore a wholesale‐price‐driven scheme, both as a single lever and in combination with buybacks. The channel performance of a wholesale‐price‐only scheme is shown to degrade with the number of suppliers, which is not the case with a revenue‐share‐only contract.     

NEGOTIATED TRANSFER PRICING AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN ORGANIZATIONS

An experiment was conducted to test hypotheses about conflict related to negotiated transfer pricing. A business game with repeated decision periods was used to simulate transfer pricing negotiations between corporate divisions. When the evaluation of division executives emphasized corporate profits rather than divisional profits, there was more smoothing and integrative problem solving and less aggressive-competitive behavior, relations between the divisions were better, and more cooperation was observed to occur in other decisions unrelated to the transfer pricing. Moreover, corporate profits from the transfer product and its derivative product tended to be larger. All of these effects were most pronounced when the transfer product was important to both divisions as a source of profits.     

竞争中的参考价格效应及承诺

消费者的社会感知会影响其对产品和品牌的评价。当消费者进行购买选择时,经常会受到参考价格效应的影响。而广告和价格不仅是企业经常要考虑的重要决策,还会对参考价格产生重要影响。为此,一个值得研究的的问题是：在考虑参考价格效应的情况下,企业该怎样确定其动态广告和价格策略？
为了研究该问题,本文构建了一个广告和价格的动态模型,来研究一个双寡头市场环境下两个寡头企业的价格和广告决策,并以此分析参考价格效应的作用。具体而言,我们假定企业可以采用广告承诺和价格承诺中的一种,其中前者承诺其在一段时间内的广告投入量恒定不变,而后者确保价格不变。两种策略不仅会影响消费者的购买决策,也会影响竞争对手的选择。在上述假定下,我们探讨了两个寡头企业在都采用广告承诺、都采用价格承诺及一个企业采用广告承诺而另一个企业采用价格承诺等三种不同情形下的最优广告和价格决策,并以此分析了三种情形下参考价格效应对最优的广告投入及定价策略的影响。最后,通过数值分析,探讨了不同情形下企业的最优策略选择。     

Supplier–Buyer Negotiation Games: Equilibrium Conditions and Supply Chain Efficiency

In a decentralized supply chain, supplier–buyer negotiations have a dynamic aspect that requires both players to consider the impact of their decisions on future decisions made by their counterpart. The interaction generally couples strongly the price decision of the supplier and the quantity decision of the buyer. We propose a basic model for a repeated supplier–buyer interaction, during several rounds. In each round, the supplier first quotes a price, and the buyer places an order at that price. We find conditions for existence and uniqueness of a well‐behaved subgame‐perfect equilibrium in the dynamic game. When costs are stationary and there are no holding costs, we identify some demand distributions for which these conditions are met, examine the efficiency of the equilibrium, and show that, as the number of rounds increases, the profits of the supply chain increase towards the supply chain optimum. In contrast, when costs vary over time or holding costs are present, the benefit from multi‐period interactions is reduced and after a finite number of time periods, supply chain profits stay constant even when the number of rounds increases.     

基于绿色技术研发的绿色供应链微分博弈及协调模型

本文以单个制造商和单个零售商组成的二级绿色供应链为背景，建立了绿色技术研发的绿色供应链微分博弈模型，比较了集中和分散决策下的微分博弈均衡解。最后，通过动态批发价机制对绿色供应链成员进行合作协调，并采用数值仿真对结果进行了验证和说明。研究发现：1)与分散决策相比，集中决策下绿色技术水平和绿色渠道总利润较高；2)当协调参数在一定范围内时，动态批发价机制能够协调制造商和零售商的行为，并且在该种模式下，绿色技术水平、产品绿色度以及商品的价格均达到了集中决策下的情形；3)在动态批发价机制下，随着绿色投资成本系数的增加或价格敏感度的增加或消费者环保意识的下降，绿色技术水平、产品绿色度、商品价格、零售商的利润以及绿色渠道总利润是下降的，而商品批发价和制造商的利润则是增加的。     

Life‐Cycle Channel Coordination Issues in Launching an Innovative Durable Product

We analyze the dynamic strategic interactions between a manufacturer and a retailer in a decentralized distribution channel used to launch an innovative durable product (IDP). The underlying retail demand for the IDP is influenced by word‐of‐mouth from past adopters and follows a Bass‐type diffusion process. The word‐of‐mouth influence creates a trade‐off between immediate and future sales and profits, resulting in a multi‐period dynamic supply chain coordination problem. Our analysis shows that while in some environments, the manufacturer is better off with a far‐sighted retailer, there are also environments in which the manufacturer is better off with a myopic retailer. We characterize equilibrium dynamic pricing strategies and the resulting sales and profit trajectories. We demonstrate that revenue‐sharing contracts can coordinate the IDP's supply chain with both far‐sighted and myopic retailers throughout the entire planning horizon and arbitrarily allocate the channel profit.     

双边网络环境下考虑消费者行为的两期供应链回收定价模型研究

闭环供应链管理是促进经济与环境双重效益提高的有效途径，已成为电子废弃物回收利用的核心解决方案。本文考虑包括制造商和第三方回收平台组成的闭环供应链模型，构建了完全垄断的两期动态博弈双边平台，分析和比较了分散决策和集中决策下闭环供应链的最优回收定价和利润，并利用收益共享契约来实现闭环供应链帕累托改进，最后用数值仿真分析了再制造比例、用户对平台利润贡献率对供应链利润的影响，验证了契约协调的有效性。研究表明：交叉网络外部性强度与平台向两边征收的价格、各主体利润和总体利润存在相关关系。第三方回收平台通过补贴消费者可有效增加回收效用，提高了回收率与消费者回收意识。实施收益共享契约的互利性使各主体积极主动实施契约，提高了各方与总体利润。     

Tactical coordination in a multi-location and multi-stage operations structure: A model and a pharmaceutical company case

In this paper, we look at the internal supply chain of an internationally operating firm characterized by a multi-location and multi-stage operations structure. We address problems at three levels, namely the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Our approach goes beyond the operational literature, and focuses primarily on the tactical level. We specify a model and a case that capture strategic and tactical issues and relate the tactical issues to organizational issues. We simulate coordination in different organizational forms pertaining to the ‘tactical control’ of the firm. Our analysis suggests that a functionally organized multi-location and multi-stage operations structure using traditional planning will not work. The choice is between a strongly IT-based, centralized organization or a more decentralized organization using transfer prices as the coordination device.     

The Impact of E‐Replenishment Strategy on Make‐to‐Order Supply Chain Performance

This research investigates the impact of electronic replenishment strategy on the operational activities and performance of a two‐stage make‐to‐order supply chain. We develop simulation‐based rolling schedule procedures that link the replenishment processes of the channel members and apply them in an experimental analysis to study manual, semi‐automated, and fully automated e‐replenishment strategies in decentralized and coordinated decision‐making supply chain structures. The average operational cost reductions for moving from a manual‐based system to a fully automated system are 19.6, 29.5, and 12.5%, respectively, for traditional decentralized, decentralized with information sharing, and coordinated supply chain structures. The savings are neither equally distributed among participants, nor consistent across supply chain structures. As expected, for the fully coordinated system, total costs monotonically decrease with higher levels of automation. However, for the two decentralized structures, under which most firms operate today, counter‐intuitive findings reveal that the unilateral application of e‐procurement technology by the buyer may lower his purchasing costs, but increase the seller's and system's costs. The exact nature of the relationship is determined by the channel's operational flexibility. Broader results indicate that while the potential economic benefit of e‐replenishment in a decentralized system is substantial, greater operational improvements maybe possible through supply chain coordination.     

三级装备制造业供应链质量管理行为研究

作为我国工业化建设和国民经济发展的根本保证,供应链环境下装备制造企业的产品质量问题受到了广泛关注。本文重点考虑产品质量对供应链收益的影响,运用微分对策理论研究由单一制造商、单一部件供应商和单一零件供应商构成的三级装备制造业供应链质量管理行为的协调问题。通过对比Nash非合作博弈和Stackelberg主从博弈两种分散式决策模式及集中式决策模式下协同合作博弈的均衡结果,得到相关结论,并利用算例进行验证。研究表明,①分散式决策下,制造商的质量管理行为相同,但相比于Nash非合作博弈,Stackelberg主从博弈能够改善部件供应商和零件供应商的质量管理行为,提升供应链成员的收益水平;②集中式决策下,供应链成员的质量管理行为达到最优,系统整体收益实现最大。研究结论为装备制造业供应链成员间质量管理战略联盟的构建提供了理论依据。     

Managerial Delegation under Alternative Unionization Structures

This paper studies the effects of managerial delegation in a duopoly game under alternative unionization structures. Introducing managerial delegation in a framework with centralized unionization leads to incentives for sales, lower profits and higher consumer surplus as well as overall welfare. In contrast, delegating output decisions to managers in the presence of decentralized unionization produces opposite results unless unions are strongly employment‐oriented. Moreover, managerial delegation makes unionization structure neutral in relation to consumer surplus and overall efficiency. Finally, the timing of moves in the three‐stage game proves to be important for obtaining the above qualitative results under decentralized unionization.     

考虑消费者预期后悔的价格歧视策略研究

基于行为的价格歧视（BPD）受到越来越多的关注,企业为了更好地服务于各细分市场,需要更细致的考虑消费者事前估值的不确定性,以及因此出现的消费者预期后悔。本文在双寡头垄断市场中建立模型,探讨消费者预期后悔对企业动态价格竞争和利润的影响。研究结果表明,消费者预期后悔会对自身购买决策产生显著影响;当高值实现概率相对较低,高低值差异大且切换后悔的厌恶较小或者重复后悔的厌恶较大时,企业奖励重复购买的客户,否则奖励切换者;预期后悔对企业的利润既可以有正面的影响也可以有负面的影响。     

Centralized versus Decentralized Competition for Price and Lead‐Time Sensitive Demand

We study two firms that compete on price and lead‐time decisions in a common market. We explore the impact of decentralizing these decisions, as made by the marketing and production departments, respectively, with either marketing or production as the leader. We compare scenarios in which none, one, or both of the firms are decentralized to see whether decentralization can be the equilibrium strategy. We find that under intense price competition, with intensity characterized by the underlying parameters of market demand, firms may suffer from a decentralized structure, particularly under high flexibility induced by high capacity, where revenue‐based sales incentives motivate sales/marketing to make aggressive price cuts that often erode profit margins. In contrast, under intense lead‐time competition, a decentralized strategy with marketing as the leader can not only result in significantly higher profits, but also be the equilibrium strategy. Moreover, decentralization may no longer lead to lower prices or longer lead‐times if the production department chooses capacity along with lead‐time.      

Managing Slow‐Moving Perishables in the Grocery Industry

We address the value of information and value of centralized control in the context of a two‐echelon, serial supply chain with one retailer and one supplier that provide a single perishable product to consumers. Our analysis is relevant for managing slow‐moving perishable products with fixed lot sizes and expiration dates of a week or less. We evaluate two supply chain structures. In the first structure, referred to as decentralized information sharing, the retailer shares its demand, inventory, and ordering policy with the supplier, yet both facilities make their own profit‐maximizing replenishment decisions. In the second structure, centralized control, incentives are aligned and the replenishment decisions are coordinated. The latter supply chain structure corresponds to the industry practices of company‐owned stores or vendor‐managed inventory. We measure the value of information and value of centralized control as the marginal improvement in expected profits that a supply chain achieves relative to the case when no information is shared and decision making is decentralized. Key assumptions of our model include stochastic demand, lost sales, and fixed order quantities. We establish the importance of information sharing and centralized control in the supply chain and identify conditions under which benefits are realized. As opposed to previous work on the value of information, the major benefit in our setting is driven by the supplier's ability to provide the retailer with fresher product. By isolating the benefit by firm, we show that sharing information is not always Pareto‐improving for both supply chain partners in the decentralized setting.     

基于B-S期权定价模型的V2G备用合约协调机制研究

基于V2G备用市场的风险中性交易特点及实践中常用的“保底收购,随行就市”合约价格机制,构建了电网公司实施期权进行套期保值前后的电动汽车用户电量预留决策模型,并对比分析了Stackelberg博弈和合作博弈下渠道双方的反馈均衡策略与最优收益。研究结果表明：仅简单地采用市场保护性的合约价格机制,将使得V2G备用市场的交易风险完全由电网公司来承担,从而无法防止其在市场行情不好时的机会主义行为;在此基础上,电网公司选择购买期权以规避由V2G备用市场价格波动所带来的风险,但是分散决策时的均衡收益小于集中决策最优收益。为此,进一步引入“B-S期权定价+预留协作+保证金”契约机制使得合作系统达到完美协调,且渠道双方的期望收益都得到Pareto改进,并给出了均衡时的V2G备用预留协作系数、交易保证金以及合约电价之间满足的解析关系。算例分析结果验证了本文提出的模型与理论分析的可行性。     

Investment in Facility Changeover Flexibility for Early Entry into High‐Tech Markets

A model is introduced to analyze the manufacturing‐marketing interface for a firm in a high‐tech industry that produces a series of high‐volume products with short product life cycles on a single facility. The one‐time strategic decision regarding the firm's investment in changeover flexibility establishes the link between market opportunities and manufacturing capabilities. Specifically, the optimal changeover flexibility decision is determined in the context of the firm's market entry strategy for successive product generations, the changeover cost between generations, and the production efficiency of the facility. Moreover, the dynamic pricing policy for each product generation is obtained as a function of the firm's market entry strategy and manufacturing efficiency. Our findings provide insights linking internal manufacturing capabilities with external market forces for the high‐tech and high‐volume manufacturer of products with short life cycles. We show the impact of manufacturing efficiency and a firm's ability to benefit from volume‐based learning on the dynamic pricing policy for each product generation. The results demonstrate the benefits realized by a firm that works with its manufacturing equipment suppliers to develop more efficient and flexible technology. In addition, we explore how opportunities afforded by pioneer advantage enable a firm operating a less efficient facility to realize long term competitive advantage by deploying an earlier market entry strategy.