Channel Coordination with a Risk‐Neutral Supplier and a Downside‐Risk‐Averse Retailer

We investigate how a supply chain involving a risk‐neutral supplier and a downside‐risk‐averse retailer can be coordinated with a supply contract. We show that the standard buy‐back or revenue‐sharing contracts may not coordinate such a channel. Using a definition of coordination of supply chains proposed earlier by the authors, we design a risk‐sharing contract that offers the desired downside protection to the retailer, provides respective reservation profits to the agents, and accomplishes channel coordination.     

零售商的资金约束对协调契约的影响分析

在零售商促销下,探讨了零售商的资金约束对使用收益共享契约和回购契约协调供应链的影响。分析了零售商拥有不同运营资金下供应链的契约协调问题,研究表明：在运营资金相对充裕下,收益共享契约不仅能协调供应链,且能实现渠道收益的任意分配,但回购契约不能实现渠道收益的任意分配,除非运营资金非常充裕;在运营资金不足下,收益共享契约仍有可能协调供应链,但回购契约不能协调供应链。讨论了资金的时间价值对两个契约协调供应链的影响,结果表明：在回购契约下,资金利率越大,具有资金约束零售商的供应链被协调的可能性越大,但资金利率对收益共享契约没有影响。最后提供了数值分析。研究中得到一些管理启示,可为资金约束供应链的协调管理提供理论借鉴。     

The Impact of Contracts and Competition on Upstream Innovation in a Supply Chain

We consider a supply chain with an upstream supplier who invests in innovation and a downstream manufacturer who sells to consumers. We study the impact of supply chain contracts with endogenous upstream innovation, focusing on three different contract scenarios: (i) a wholesale price contract, (ii) a quality‐dependent wholesale price contract, and (iii) a revenue‐sharing contract. We confirm that the revenue‐sharing contract can coordinate supply chain decisions including the innovation investment, whereas the other two contracts may result in underinvestment in innovation. However, the downstream manufacturer does not always prefer the revenue‐sharing contract; the manufacturer's profit can be higher with a quality‐dependent wholesale price contract than with a revenue‐sharing contract, specifically when the upstream supplier's innovation cost is low. We then extend our model to incorporate upstream competition between suppliers. By inviting upstream competition, with the wholesale price contract, the manufacturer can increase his profit substantially. Furthermore, under upstream competition, the revenue‐sharing contract coordinates the supply chain, and results in an optimal contract form for the manufacturer when suppliers are symmetric. We also analyze the case of complementary components suppliers, and show that most of our results are robust.     

Mean-risk analysis of radio frequency identification technology in supply chain with inventory misplacement: Risk-sharing and coordination

This paper investigates the application of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to eliminate the misplacement problems in the supply chain, which consists of a risk-neutral manufacturer and a risk-averse retailer. By considering both fixed cost and tag cost of RFID implementation, we study the agents' incentives to adopt RFID in both uncoordinated and coordinated cases. We focus on analyzing the impact of risk attitudes on the agents’ incentives and on the supply chain coordination. The central semi-deviation is adopted to measure the retailer's risk attitude. In the uncoordinated case, we find that, in order to induce the retailer to adopt RFID, the manufacturer must assume more fixed cost if the retailer is more risk-averse. In the coordinated case, we first show that the standard revenue sharing contract does not always coordinate the channel. If the channel is coordinated, we observe that the agents’ incentives will be perfectly aligned and independent of the risk attitudes, if the revenue sharing ratio equals the fixed cost sharing ratio. Then we propose a risk-sharing contract that offers the risk protection to the retailer, to achieve the channel coordination. An interesting finding is that the manufacturer's incentive will not decrease with the tag cost, if she takes much risk from the retailer. The corresponding impacts of RFID adoption on the two contracts are also analyzed in this paper. Finally, a case study in a tobacco industry is presented to show the real RFID cost in practice.     

VMI供应链下考虑补货策略的的契约设计

结合(r,Q)和(s,S)两种库存补货策略,提出了货权属供应商的VMI供应链的契约设计问题。采用风险分担的思想,给出了两种可行的风险分担的契约形式。在离散需求下,通过参数试验的形式,分别研究了两种契约形式对供应链效率的影响。研究结果表明,两种契约能够使得供应链的效率达到满意,同时对于影响效率的参数有一定的鲁棒性,并且在一定情况下能协调供应链。相比收益分享契约,引入风险分享的契约形式能够使得供应链协作的效率更高。研究结论对VMI契约设计有参考意义。     

突发性产出下的供应链协调应对策略

针对突发事件影响制造商产出的情形，研究了收益共享契约协调应对突发产出事件的有效性问题。首先论证了无突发产出事件时收益共享契约协调供应链的有效性，进而分析了突发产出事件对供应链最优生产计划、定价决策、绩效和协调性的影响。然后，建立了突发产出事件下的收益共享契约协调应对模型，并对原收益共享契约和修正后的收益共享契约进行了对比分析。研究表明：当突发产出事件导致产出扰动范围较小时，供应链的最优生产计划、批发价格和零售价格几乎保持不变，仅当产出扰动范围较大时，三者才需要同时调整，此时原供应链的协调性也将被打破，而修正后的收益共享契约具有良好的抗突发性。最后，通过算例进行了验证。     

Pay‐Back‐Revenue‐Sharing Contract in Coordinating Supply Chains with Random Yield

We consider coordination issues in supply chains where supplier's production process is subject to random yield losses. For a simple supply chain with a single supplier and retailer facing deterministic demand, a pay back contract which has the retailer paying a discount price for the supplier's excess units can provide the right incentive for the supplier to increase his production size and achieve coordination. Building upon this result, we consider coordination issues for two other supply chains: one with competing retailers, the other with stochastic demand. When retailers compete for both demand and supply, they tend to over‐order. We show that a combination of a pay back and revenue sharing mechanism can coordinate the supply chain, with the pay back mechanism correcting the supplier's under‐producing problem and the revenue sharing mechanism correcting the retailers' over‐ordering problem. When demand is stochastic, we consider a modified pay‐back‐revenue‐sharing contract under which the retailer agrees to not only purchase the supplier's excess output (beyond the retailer's order), but also share with the supplier a portion of the revenue made from the sales of the excess output. We show that this contract, by giving the supplier additional incentives in the form of revenue share, can achieve coordination.     

生产商规模不经济的双渠道供应链协调策略选择

供应链协调是提高供应链整体利润、改善供应链各方利益的根本手段.旨在探讨生产商具有生产规模不经济特性的双渠道供应链协调策略.给出了集中决策下双渠道供应链的市场价格与整体利润,以及分散决策下批发价契约与收益共享契约的设计方法.提出了协调度的概念,即契约使供应链协调的程度.证明了批发价契约的协调度小于1,不能实现供应链的协调;而收益共享契约的协调度等于1,但相对于批发价契约,收益共享契约不能同时改善零售商和生产商的利润,导致收益共享契约不可实施.为找到双渠道供应链可实施的协调策略,提出了带固定补偿的收益共享契约的设计方法和用纳什讨价还价协商模型确定固定补偿的方法.结果表明,该契约的协调度等于1,并且相对于批发价契约能同时改善零售商和生产商的利润.另外,研究还表明:生产不经济的弹性系数与销售价格成正比、与供应链的整体利润成反比,并且不同渠道间的竞争越激烈,双渠道供应链的销售价格和需求反而越高,双渠道供应链的总利润也越高,并且,带固定补偿的收益共享契约同样可以协调线性成本下的双渠道供应链.最后用算例验证了本文结论的正确性和有效性.     

Channel Coordination for a Supply Chain with a Risk‐Neutral Manufacturer and a Loss‐Averse Retailer*

This articles considers a decentralized supply chain in which a single manufacturer is selling a perishable product to a single retailer facing uncertain demand. It differs from traditional supply chain contract models in two ways. First, while traditional supply chain models are based on risk neutrality, this article takes the viewpoint of behavioral principal–agency theory and assumes the manufacturer is risk neutral and the retailer is loss averse. Second, while gain/loss (GL) sharing is common in practice, there is a lack of analysis of GL‐sharing contracts in the supply chain contract literature. This article investigates the role of a GL‐sharing provision for mitigating the loss‐aversion effect, which drives down the retailer order quantity and total supply chain profit. We analyze contracts that include GL‐sharing‐and‐buyback (GLB) credit provisions as well as the special cases of GL contracts and buyback contracts. Our analytical and numerical results lend insight into how a manufacturer can design a contract to improve total supply chain, manufacturer, and retailer performance. In particular, we show that there exists a special class of distribution‐free GLB contracts that can coordinate the supply chain and arbitrarily allocate the expected supply chain profit between the manufacturer and retailer; in contrast with other contracts, the parameter values for contracts in this class do not depend on the probability distribution of market demand. This feature is meaningful in practice because (i) the probability distribution of demand faced by a retailer is typically unknown by the manufacturer and (ii) a manufacturer can offer the same contract to multiple noncompeting retailers that differ by demand distribution and still coordinate the supply chains.     

Coordinating a supply chain for deteriorating items with a revenue sharing and cooperative investment contract

In this study, a one-manufacturer–one-retailer supply chain model for deteriorating items with controllable deterioration rate and price-dependent demand is developed, in which both players cooperatively invest in preservation technology to reduce deterioration. Algorithms are designed to obtain the pricing and preservation technology investment strategies in both integrated and decentralized scenarios. It is shown that cooperative investment strategy benefits the manufacturer but damages the profits of the retailer and the whole supply chain. A revenue sharing and cooperative investment contract, which combines revenue sharing and cost sharing mechanisms, is thus designed to coordinate the supply chain. Numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis of the equilibrium strategies and coordinating results on key system parameters are given to verify the effectiveness of the contract, and meanwhile get some managerial insights. The results show that only when the revenue sharing rate lies roughly between 1/2 and 3/4 can the contract perfectly coordinate the supply chain in most cases, which has an important guiding significance for the supply chain coordination of deteriorating items when considering preservation technology investment.     

分销商需求与其努力相关时混合渠道供应链协调研究

建立了由一个制造商和一个分销商组成的混合渠道供应链模型,考虑了分销商的需求量与其销售努力相关时的协调问题,分别讨论了传统渠道和混合渠道两种情况下供应链的订货量、销售努力的协调问题.并通过改进的收入共享契约使混合渠道供应链同时达到了订货量和销售努力的协调。最后进行了算例分析,比较了供应链、以及供应链成员的利润变化情况,分析结果可以为准备增设电子渠道的制造商提供有意义的建议。     

Downside-Risk测度下三层供应链协调契约研究

以制造商是风险中性、分销商和销售商具有下行风险特性的三层供应链系统为背景,研究了风险规避特性对供应链协调性的影响,证明了Downside-Risk测度下三层供应链不协调。依据供应链协调的基本思想和方法,将补偿政策与收益共享、产品回购等契约相结合,建立了Downside-Risk测度下三层供应链协调模型,设计了风险共享契约,既能满足下行风险约束,又保证供应链参与方利润均有增量,实现了Downside-Risk测度下供应链的协调和风险控制,最后通过算例验证了契约的可行性和有效性。     

The Agency Model for Digital Goods

While digital goods industries such as entertainment, software, and publishing are growing at a rapid pace, traditional supply chain contract models have failed to evolve with the new digital economy. To illustrate, the agency model utilized by the e‐book publishing industry has recently received much negative attention brought by the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, Inc. The emerging agency model in the e‐book industry works as follows: the publisher sets the price of the digital goods and the retailers who serve as agents retain a percentage of the revenue associated with a consumer purchase. The regulators claim that the agency model is hurting this industry as well as the consumer's welfare because e‐book prices have increased after the introduction of the agency model. We investigate the strategic impact of the agency model by examining a digital goods supply chain with one supplier and two competing retailers. In comparison to the benchmark wholesale model, we find that the agency model can coordinate the competing retailers by dividing the coordinated profits into a prenegotiated revenue sharing proportion. Further, we also identify the Pareto improving region whereby both the supplier and the retailers prefer the agency model to the wholesale model. Our main qualitative insight regarding the agency model still holds even when we consider the presence of the printed books in the marketplace. Thus, contrary to current press presaging the negative impact of the agency model on the e‐books industry, we find the agency model to be superior to the traditional wholesale contracts for publishers, retailers and consumers in this digital goods industry.     

面向供应链协调的利润分享契约及其响应方法研究

针对收入分享契约未能使供应链中的风险在成员企业之间有效分担的情况,提出了一种利润分享契约及其在需求价格弹性变动情况下的响应方法。按照该契约,供应商与零售商之间采用中间产品的单位成本作为结算价格,并在销售期末对供应链系统利润进行适当分配。当需求价格弹性发生变化时,需要调整利润分享契约参数以引导零售商的决策。研究表明,利润分享契约能够协调供应链;对市场需求变化的合理响应,能够促使双方接受新的协调契约,使供应链系统利润始终处于最优水平。仿真实例表明了利润分享契约及其响应方法的有效性。     

基于CVaR的供应链联合促销的回购契约协调研究

运用CVaR方法,考察了风险中性的供应商和风险规避的销售商联合促销报童类商品的供应链的回购契约协调问题,从讨论中获得一些管理启示。讨论了既定回购契约下渠道成员的最优决策,并分析了回购契约参数、销售商风险规避系数、商品残值和缺货成本等外生参数对渠道成员决策的影响。研究表明传统回购契约不能完成渠道协调,但引入成本分担机制的回购契约能协调不过于规避风险的供应链;指出商品残值和缺货成本对上述结论没有影响,但它们对契约选择空间和能被回购契约协调的供应链的范围具有重要影响。最后,对文中主要结论进行了数值分析。     

需求扰动下闭环供应链的收益费用共享契约研究

本文研究了由一个制造商和一个零售商组成的零售商负责回收闭环供应链。指出通过收益费用共享契约可协调解决分散式决策闭环供应链中存在的“双边际效应”问题,提高其运营效益。当突发事件引起市场需求中的最大市场需求规模发生扰动时,通过对集中式决策闭环供应链的最优决策与稳定环境下起协调作用的收益费用共享契约协调零售商所得到的最优决策进行比较分析,结果表明：稳定环境下的收益费用共享契约将不能协调突发事件干扰下的分散式决策闭环供应链。基于收益费用共享契约的协调机理对其参数进行改进可再次协调突发事件干扰下的分散式决策闭环供应链,并且该契约也能够协调稳定环境下的分散式决策闭环供应链。最后,通过算例验证了本文的主要结论并说明了收益费用共享契约的价值。     

基于RFID技术的供应链投资决策及协调策略研究

本文以单制造商和单零售商组成的两级供应链为研究对象,基于链上成员是否投资RFID技术,考虑四种情景:供应链成员均不投资RFID,仅零售商投资RFID,仅生产商投资RFID及供应链成员共同投资RFID。采用Newsvendor模型建立四种情景时链上成员的收益模型,得出Stackelberg均衡解和供应链成员的最优期望收益,探讨了RFID技术投资对各情景时链上成员收益的影响,得到了供应链成员共同投资RFID时的协调策略。研究表明:当RFID标签成本和零售商库存不准确率在相应的阈值内,零售商或制造商单独投资RFID技术均能提升自身收益,同时对链上其他成员的收益存在"正外部性";此外,收益共享契约能够有效地协调链上成员共同投资RFID技术后的供应链,并且该协调思想丰富并拓展了供应链投资RFID技术的协调研究。     

政府激励政策下人造板绿色供应链谈判-协调机制研究

当前我国人造板产业面临效率低下、资源浪费和环境污染等问题,上下游企业缺乏合作与协调。本文界定了人造板绿色供应链系统,运用契约理论和纳什谈判理论,分别构建了政府激励政策下人造板绿色供应链集中优化决策、分散均衡决策和谈判协调决策模型,从而建立了相应的收益分享-成本分担契约谈判协调机制,并基于相关行业和企业经验数据,与传统人造板供应链进行了对比数值分析。研究结果表明:(1)收益分享-成本分担契约谈判-协调机制能够很好地实现人造板绿色供应链的协调运营,提高资源效率,降低环境负影响和提升运营绩效。(2)人造板绿色供应链管理模式下供应链及其成员的最优利润均高于传统管理模式,谈判协调决策情形下供应链及其成员的最优利润均高于分散均衡决策情形。(3)制定有"门槛"的增值税即征即退政策和适当的环境税政策,自建经济林场、选用经济型枝桠材,强化技术研发和工艺改进,有助于提高人造板供应链运营绩效。     

供应商保鲜努力的生鲜农产品双渠道供应链协调决策研究

在互联网迅猛发展的时代,生鲜农产品双渠道营销模式是供应商的最佳选择,如何发挥双渠道优势,实现渠道共赢是目前研究的热点。以供应商主导的双渠道供应链为研究对象,考虑新鲜度衰减且扰动需求和供应商保鲜努力,对比分析集中和分散决策模型,论证构建协调模型的必要性。从渠道合作和利润最大化的角度出发,设计两部定价契约、批发价协调契约和由成本分担与补偿策略构成的混合协调契约,三种契约均能在一定范围内有效实现供应链协调,提高各成员的利润。最后,对比分析所设计协调契约以认识其本质,并通过数值分析验证其有效性。     

基于集成供应的RS契约协调模型研究

在由供应商和制造商组成的两级供应链中引入集成商,研究了需求不确定且价格敏感条件下基于集成供应的3级供应链的协调问题,建立了满足渠道协调条件和集成供应条件的RS契约协调模型,给出了模型中RS契约参数的取值范围和取值过程,并用实例加以说明。利用模型不仅可以确定产品的生产量和销售价格,而且还可以通过RS契约参数实现供应链利润的分配。