具有两阶段生产模式和需求信息更新的供应链契约研究

针对二级供应链,在基于Stackelberg博弈的批发价契约中,分析了折扣价格与零售商最优提前订购量的关系及对契约双方期望收益的影响;设计了价格折扣与回购联合的协调契约,分析了供应链系统的最优提前生产量、供应链协调条件及协调契约下制造商和零售商的期望收益变化,并在协调契约不满足制造商的个体理性约束时,提出采用不对称Nash谈判模型设计两阶段生产与订购的回购契约,在保证供应链系统整体绩效最优的条件下,使制造商和零售商利润都能得到满意增长。研究表明,三级供应链实行两阶段订购的必要条件是分销商与零售商的最优提前订购量相等,与二级供应链相比,价格折扣契约下三级供应链效率更低,但价格折扣与回购联合的契约同样能协调三级供应链,该协调契约满足零售商与分销商激励相容约束。     

考虑企业社会责任承担的两阶段闭环供应链协调机制研究

针对由一个制造商和一个零售商组成的新产品和再造品差异定价的闭环供应链系统,将企业社会责任（CSR）纳入研究,分别构建了集中决策下供应链整体承担CSR、分散决策下分别由制造商与零售商单独承担CSR的两阶段闭环供应链模型,探讨了履行CSR对闭环供应链的影响和闭环供应链对CSR的最佳承担方式。在此基础上,建立了一个由数量折扣与CSR履行成本共担的组合契约模型。研究表明：当闭环供应链成员单独承担CSR时,制造商承担的效果与零售商相比,两者各有优势,没有出现某一种承担方式的效果明显优于另一种的情形;无论制造商还是零售商,单独承担CSR的最优决策与集中决策相比均有较大差距;随着新产品与再造品竞争程度的增加,闭环供应链各成员及整体利润也随之增加;如果制造商和零售商能够按照数量折扣与CSR履行成本共担的组合契约来共同履行CSR,闭环供应链系统能够达到协调的效果,实现更大的社会福利。     

Differential Pricing for Information Sharing Under Competition

We consider a two‐echelon supply chain with a manufacturer supplying to multiple downstream retailers engaged in differentiated Cournot competition. Each retailer has private information about uncertain demand. The manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader who sets the contract terms with the retailers, and benefits from retailers sharing their private information. When all retailers are given the same wholesale price, truthful information sharing is not an equilibrium outcome. We propose two variants of differential pricing mechanisms that induce truthful information sharing by all retailers. The first variant rewards a retailer for providing optimistic information and achieves truthful information sharing as a unique equilibrium. The differential pricing mechanism is optimal in the class of linear‐price, incentive‐compatible, direct mechanisms. The second variant, which incorporates provision for a fixed payment in addition to wholesale prices, preserves all the equilibrium properties of the first variant and additionally “nearly coordinates” the supply chain. Our analysis of differential pricing with a fixed payment provides interesting observations regarding the relationship between product substitutability, number of retailers, information precision, and market power. As products become closer substitutes and/or number of retailers increase, the manufacturer's market power increases, enabling her to extract a larger fraction of the supply chain surplus.     

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.     

Demand Forecast Sharing in Supply Chains

This paper examines the incentives of a manufacturer and a retailer to share their demand forecasts. The demand at the retailer is a linearly decreasing function of price. The manufacturer sets the wholesale price first, and the retailer sets the retail price after observing the wholesale price. Both players set their prices based on their forecasts of demand. In the make‐to‐order scenario, the manufacturer sets the production quantity after observing the actual demand; in the make‐to‐stock scenario, the manufacturer sets the production quantity before the demand is realized. In the make‐to‐order scenario, we show that sharing the forecast unconditionally by the retailer with the manufacturer benefits the manufacturer but hurts the retailer. We also demonstrate that a side payment contract cannot induce Pareto‐optimal information sharing equilibrium, but a discount based wholesale price contract can. The social welfare as well as consumer surplus is higher under the discount contract, compared with under no information sharing. In the make‐to‐stock scenario, the manufacturer realizes additional benefits in the form of savings in inventory holding and shortage costs when forecasts are shared. If the savings from inventory holding and shortage costs because of information sharing are sufficiently high, then a side payment contract that induces Pareto‐optimal information sharing is feasible in the make‐to‐stock scenario. We also provide additional managerial insights with the help of a computational study.     

考虑异质消费者的线下到线上供应链合作广告契约设计

本文针对一个拥有线上渠道的制造商和一个零售商组成的线下到线上(O2O)供应链,考虑渠道产品差异化策略下零售商为制造商线上渠道进行广告引流,刻画消费者对产品的异质性需求,分别设计对称信息和不对称信息下制造商的最优合作广告契约,通过对比两种情形中最优决策及利润的变化分析信息不对称的影响,并进一步探讨不对称信息下消费者渠道转换的麻烦成本、单位不匹配成本等重要参数对合作广告契约设计和供应链成员利润的影响。研究发现:不对称信息下,制造商可以策略性选择三种不同策略以最大化自身利润,其中不甄别零售商真实信息的混同均衡在某些条件下是制造商的最优策略;尽管信息不对称会给制造商带来利润损失,但制造商通过策略选择可缓和信息不对称的不利影响,某些条件下信息不对称并不损害供应链总体的利润;麻烦成本的变化会改变制造商不对称信息下最优合作广告契约的策略选择,某些条件下麻烦成本的增高对制造商利润反而存在正影响。最后,通过数值仿真对上述研究结果进行直观考察和说明。     

回馈与惩罚契约下闭环供应链应对突发事件的协调性研究

考虑一个制造商和一个零售商组成的闭环供应链,在考虑随机性需求下,首先分析了回馈与惩罚契约对闭环供应链的协调作用;然后,探讨了回馈与惩罚契约对突发事件的协调作用,研究表明:基准的回馈与惩罚契约对突发事件将不再发挥协调作用,为此,给出了闭环供应链对突发事件的最优应对策略,并调整了原来的回馈与惩罚契约使其具有抗突发事件性。     

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.     

不对称信息下考虑产能约束的供应链合同设计

本文针对由产能约束品牌制造商和零售商组成的供应链系统,考虑市场上消费者对产品的异质性偏好,以及品牌制造商和零售商之间存在信息不对称,研究品牌制造商最优合同设计与零售商定价策略,考察产能约束与不对称信息对产品定价和供应双方合作的影响。研究发现：受到产能约束的品牌制造商有三种合同策略,即低价合同、固定价格合同以及高价合同等三种合同,在低价合同下品牌制造商可以充分利用其产能约束,而在后两种合同下产品有可能滞销;不对称信息会导致"批发价格+一次性转移支付"合同不能完美协调供应链。当品牌制造商和零售商进行信息共享谈判时,若二者在高价合同下进行合作,则品牌制造商与零售商在一定条件下可以达成信息共享谈判,实现"双赢"。     

Designing Multi‐Attribute Procurement Mechanisms for Assortment Planning

This research investigates how to design procurement mechanisms for assortment planning. We consider that a retailer buys directly from a manufacturer who possesses private information about the per‐unit variable cost and per‐variety setup cost. We first develop a screening model to assist the retailer in integrating assortment planning into supply chain contracting processes when only one manufacturer is available. We demonstrate that the screening mechanism is optimal among all feasible procurement strategies. When there are multiple competing manufacturers, we propose a supply contract auctioning mechanism and evaluate its performance. In this mechanism, the retailer announces a contract menu and the manufacturer that bids the highest upfront fee paid to the retailer wins the auction. The winner then chooses and executes a contract from the contract menu. We show that when the retailer uses the optimal screening contract menu as the object of the auction, it achieves the optimal procurement outcome if the screening contract menu does not pay rent to any manufacturer type. This finding sheds light on the connection between screening and auction mechanisms when there exists multi‐dimensional private information.     

考虑批发价格更新的易逝品的零售商订货策略

易逝品的供应链管理作为供应链管理的一个重要分支,日益受到关注和重视。易逝品供应链管理的一个核心问题就是:制造商如何吸引零售商尽早订货和零售商如何针对制造商的吸引措施来进行合理订货。本文研究考虑批发价格更新的易逝品的零售商的订货策略,制造商通过为零售商提供不同批发价格的两次订货机会,来实现制造商和零售商的共赢。通过对开始时刻和批发价格更新后的系统进行建模和讨论,得到了制造商提供的两次不同的批发价格应满足的条件和零售商应该采取的优化的订货与调整策略。     

混合需求下考虑专利保护因素的闭环供应链定价与协调

在新产品需求为随机需求,再制造产品需求受销售价格影响的混合需求条件下,以博弈论为主要工具,研究了受专利保护的再制造闭环供应链的定价与协调问题,分析了集中决策和分散决策两种情形下的新产品最优订购量、废旧产品最优回收价格、最优专利许可费用、再制造品最优零售价格以及供应链的最优利润,并通过收益分享一费用分担契约对闭环供应链系统进行了协调,并通过数值算例验证了集中决策和分散决策情形下再制造成本节约对供应链成员的最优决策和利润的影响,以及收益分享.费用分担契约对闭环供应链的协调效果。研究表明再制造受专利保护的情况下,原制造商能通过专利许可费来影响第三方再制造商回收的废旧产品的回收价格和回收量,进而去影响原制造商和第三方再制造商的收益。     

碳信息不对称下的供应链谎报决策与协调研究

低碳环境下,供应链上下游企业之间面临碳排放量及碳价格信息不对称带来的风险。针对该问题,文章在碳交易环境下,基于"基准法"的碳配额分配机制,构建以制造商为主导的两级供应链模型,在碳信息不对称下分析供应链成员的谎报行为及其对供应链绩效的影响,研究表明,若制造商拥有碳信息优势并在满足最优谎报方程的前提下采取谎报行动,制造商的利润没有得到实质的提升,且其谎报决策并不对供应链绩效产生影响;而当零售商拥有碳信息优势时,一定会为了提高自身利润而谎报碳信息,且在最优谎报方程下能提高零售商及供应链总利润,同时降低制造商的利润,但该谎报行为不能使供应链绩效达到最优。针对零售商的谎报行为,文章采用收益共享契约进行协调,使供应链绩效达到最优,并验证了该契约对激励零售商真实反馈碳信息的有效性。     

考虑资金收益情况下的供应链回购契约

在制造商的资金收益率大于零售商资金收益率的情况下,以报童模型为基础,研究了资金收益对回购契约的影响.系统预期利润变为与批发价相关,利用拉格朗日方程求解了满足零售商参与约束、同时使系统和制造商预期利润取得最大值的契约参数.与不考虑资金收益情况下的供应链协调不同的是:订货批量大于相应批发价下不考虑零售商参与约束的最优订货批量;若零售商的保留利润一定,则回购价增大;回购价可以大于批发价,批发价可以小于制造商的边际生产成本.     

Value of and Interaction between Production Postponement and Information Sharing Strategies for Supply Chain Firms

We analyze the value of and interaction between production postponement and information sharing, which are two distinct strategies to reduce manufacturers’ uncertainty about demand. In both single‐level and two‐level supply chains, from the manufacturer's perspective, while information sharing is always valuable, production postponement can sometimes be detrimental. Furthermore, the value of production postponement is not merely driven by savings in inventory holding cost as postponement enables the manufacturer to avoid both excess and shortfall in production. We find that production postponement and information sharing strategies may substitute, complement, or conflict with each other, depending on the extent of the increase in the unit production cost when production is postponed. In a two‐level supply chain, from the retailer's perspective, information sharing and production postponement can be beneficial or detrimental. When information sharing is beneficial to the retailer, the retailer always shares her demand information with the manufacturer voluntarily. In addition, this voluntary information sharing is truthful because inflated or deflated demand information hurts the retailer through a higher wholesale price or a stock‐out. However, the retailer never shares her demand information voluntarily if the manufacturer has already adopted production postponement because production postponement and information sharing strategies always conflict with each other. Even when the retailer does not benefit from information sharing, we show that the manufacturer can always design an incentive mechanism to induce the retailer to share the demand information, irrespective of whether the manufacturer has already implemented production postponement or not. The above findings underscore the need for a careful assessment of demand uncertainty‐reduction strategies before the supply chain players embark upon them.     

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。     

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。     

Enhancing corporate social responsibility: Contract design under information asymmetry

We consider a two-stage supply chain in which a contract manufacturer (CM) sells products through a brand name retailer. The contract manufacturer can invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to improve customer perception about the firm and increase demand, while the retailer can influence the demand by exerting marketing efforts. We design optimal contracts for such a supply chain, which faces information asymmetry. The wholesale price contract was developed as the base model to derive insight into the value of information sharing. We examine the impact of CSR cost on CSR commitment and profits. We find that CM׳s CSR cost impacts the CM׳s and the retailer׳s profits differently. Under certain conditions, the CM׳s profit will increase with cost, while that of the retailer is uncertain. We also propose two-part tariff contracts for both the symmetric and asymmetric cases with the aim of maximizing the retailer׳s profit and improving CM׳s commitment to CSR. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate and validate the proposed models and provide managerial insights.     

产品责任、企业社会责任偏好与供应链中的质量-数量协调

在产品质量和产品数量（订货量）内生化的情形下，同时实现其质量和数量的协调将成为供应链管理的一个重要问题。进一步，在产品低质量对消费者造成伤害的情形下，制造商将面临着产品责任（表征制造商对消费者产品伤害的补偿），从而导致"产品责任如何影响供应链中的质量-数量协调"这一问题。最后，如果核心企业具有对消费者的企业社会责任（CSR）偏好，则这种CSR偏好又如何影响供应链中的质量-数量协调？针对这三个问题，首先，利用批发价合同构建了一个由上游制造商和下游零售商组成的两级供应链运作博弈模型；其次考察了制造商产品责任、CSR偏好程度和质量改进效率对其产品质量决策、批发价合同和相应的供应链节点企业利润的影响；最后，研究了供应链质量-数量协调问题。结果表明：（1）产品责任不影响产品质量、订货量、供应链节点企业经济利润和消费者剩余，但制造商批发价随产品责任的增加而增加；（2）随着CSR偏好程度的增加，产品质量、订货量、零售商经济利润、供应链系统经济利润和消费者剩余随之增加，而制造商经济利润随之减小；（3）质量改进效率的提高，有利于产品质量、订货量、零售商经济利润、供应链系统经济利润和消费者剩余的增加；（4）一个由数量折扣契约和质量改进成本分担契约共同构成的协调机制，可以有效的实现供应链系统的协调，其中，产品责任将促使数量折扣契约中产品批发价的增加和质量改进成本分担比例的减小，而CSR偏好程度的增加将促使数量折扣契约中产品批发价的减小，但不影响质量改进成本分担比例。     

Controlling Power Retailer's Gray Activities Through Contract Design

We develop a model that captures dynamic relationships of a supply chain populated by a dominant retailer and a number of fringe retailers. The two types of retailers are asymmetric in buying power, retailing cost, and the ability to service the manufacturer's product. The wholesale prices offered through a quantity discount (QD) schedule can coordinate such a supply chain, but invite channel flow diversion type of gray trading between the dominant retailer and the fringe retailers. Our analysis is focused on how such a channel can be coordinated and the gray market activities be prevented. We propose a dynamic QD contract or a revenue‐sharing contract that the manufacturer can use to fight the gray market activity. The performance of the supply chain and the manufacturer's profit under each of the two contract forms are compared and managerial guidelines are provided to help the manufacturer make a judicious choice.