Research On Supply Chain Partnership Coordinated Problem Of Information Goods

While the rapid development of Internet and information technology have pushed the human economy and society into the network economy era, the dependence on economic resources has transformed from the enormous depletion of natural resources to the valid exploitation and utilization of information resources. As the specifics of network economy, information goods with essential input factors on the contribution of information resources can be in intangible digital form, which are produced, distributed and consumed with zero gravity in the virtual world. And they have been profoundly changing the way of production, trade, living and study of human society. Meanwhile, the inherent characteristics of information goods market caused by network economy embedded with winner-take-all, technology innovation competition, and creative destruction, endow the consumers of information goods with the unprecedented options. The base of competitive advantage for the information goods firms has been beyond the capability and resources of single company, and the competition among companies has extended to the competition among supply chains. Cooperation is the core of supply chain management. At present, the supply chain partnership coordinated problem of traditional physical goods has gained many scholars'attention. Therefore, the research object of this dissertation focuses on the information goods supply chain.Information goods supply chain partnership is the contract relationship of co-opetitive innovation in nature. The information goods market with natural monopoly, which is different from traditional physical goods market essentially. Above all, the monopoly status of information goods market derives mainly from technology innovation competition rather than monopoly behavior. Simultaneity, in comparison with the traditional physical goods, there are distinguished economic uniqueness of information goods emerging in production, consumption and distribution, ranging from the high-investment and high-uncertainty of the first unit in production, the culture consumption behavior in essence and non-rivalrous consumption, and insymmetry of value and ownership transfer in distribution, which determine that the rational conflict in information goods supply chain partnership, the spillover effect in cooperative innovation and the strategic substituting effect among the information goods industry competitors will lead to cooperative innovation competence weakened and even lost. And then it will lead to harassment, maladjustment and even destruction of cooperation. Consequently, it is meaningful theoretically as well as practically to research on the supply chain partnership coordinated problem of information goods.The dissertation, from the viewpoint of effective avoiding supply chain partnership risks of information goods, combines the ideas of information economics theory, supply chain management theory, transaction cost theory, game theory, modern contract theory, industrial organization theory and welfare economics theory to set up the basic analytical framework of the supply chain partnership coordination of information goods, which is fully studied through qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. And then it systematically studies the supply chain partnership coordinated problem of information goods from organizational layer, industrial layer and institutional layer in virtue of typical cases of information goods firms to ensure the dissertation with practical and theoretical values.The main research contents and results are as followings:(1) The foundational research. With the purpose of introducing the basic knowledge and general background for the follow-up studies, this part is discussed from five aspects: firstly, analyzes the definition and market characteristic of information goods, along with the difference of the economic and market characteristic between information goods and traditional physical goods; secondly, illustrates the strategic causes, structural characteristics and essence of information goods supply chain partnership, putting forward that the information goods supply chain partnership is the contract relationship of co-opetitive innovation in nature; thirdly, presents that it is a dilemma for the contractors how to protect their own core innovation competence in close cooperation to share risks and rewards in information goods supply chain partnership, which is the general problem in the information goods supply chain coordination as well; fourthly, addresses the coordinated incentives from the key risk sources of information goods supply chain; finally, constructs the incentive model and analytical framework of supply chain partnership coordinated of information goods from organizational layer, industrial layer and institutional layer.(2) The research on the coordinated problem from organizational layer. Firstly, it analyzes the definition of information goods supply chain cooperative innovation, as well as the partnership risk caused by vertical spillover effect of information goods supply chain R&D cooperation. From the cooperative R&D case of Pixar and Disney, it addresses the investment hold-up problem in information goods supply chain R&D cooperation, and then it proposes to solve the above problem by coordinated contract mechanism in the virtually integrated organization framework of information goods supply chain. Secondly, it establishes and tests the theoretical expectation model of R&D investment cost of information goods R&D innovation rent through empirical research, and quantitively analyzes the spillover risk in the information goods supply chain R&D cooperation as well. Based on the above studies, in the condition of symmetrical spillover effect, it addresses the effectiveness of nonlinear transfer payment contract to coordinate the decentralized information goods supply chain cooperative R&D investment, benchmarking to the centralized decision of integrated information goods supply chain in the complete contract. Then it further focuses on the optimal clause design and coordinated effectiveness of nonlinear transfer payment contract in two unilateral spillover effect cases. Finally, considering the irreversibility and natural spillover effect of R&D cooperative investment, it puts forward and designs the perfect sharing contract coordinated mechanism.(3) The research on the coordinated problem from industrial layer. Firstly, from two inverse engineering cases of Sega and CA, it defines the horizontal spillover risk problem in the information goods supply chain R&D cooperation. Secondly, from the perspective of stractegic interactions of information goods industry competitors, in the horizontal spillover risk, it constitutes two incomplete contracts coordinated mechanism to incent the information goods supply chain R&D investment cooperation and solves the optimal contract clauses, meanwhile, it also studies the strategic effect of cooperative R&D investment from information goods firms in two incomplete contracts. Based on the above-mentioned discussion, it further studies the coordinated effectiveness of nonlinear transfer payment contract and perfect sharing contract in the threat of strategic substitute by information goods industrial competitors through numerical simulation. (4) The research on the coordinated problem from institutional layer. Firstly, from the anti-monopoly case of Microsoft, it addresses the government policy to regulate the anti-monopoly in information goods market and proposes to take the behavioral doctrine policy substituting for the structure doctrine policy. Based on the above proposition, it analyzes the impact of information goods market structure on the cooperative R&D innovation incentive and the coordinated effectiveness of supply chain contract. Then, in the incentive policy of government subsidies, it builds two incomplete contract coordinated mechanism to incent the supply chain cooperative investment and designs optimal contract clauses. Finally, in virtue of the numerical simulation analysis, it further studies the incentive effectiveness of government subsidies for nonlinear transfer payment contract and perfect sharing contract in horizontal spillover risk.In this dissertation, some innovations are made in the following four aspects:(1) Focusing the research object on the information goods supply chain. From the viewpoint of effective avoiding supply chain partnership risks of information goods, it sets up the basic analytical framework of the supply chain partnership coordination of information goods, along with systematically studying the supply chain partnership coordinated problem of information goods from organizational layer, industrial layer and institutional layer.(2) From the perspective of virtually integrated organization coordination of information goods supply chain, it analyzes the partnership risk caused by vertical spillover effect of information goods supply chain R&D cooperation, and proposes to solve the investment hold-up problem in information goods supply chain R&D cooperation by coordinated contract mechanism. It establishes and tests the theoretical expectation model of R&D investment cost of information goods R&D innovation rent through empirical research, and quantitively analyzes the spillover risk in the information goods supply chain R&D cooperation. Considering the irreversibility and natural spillover effect of R&D cooperative investment, it puts forward and designs the perfect sharing contract coordinated mechanism.(3) From the perspective of stractegic interactions of information goods industry competitors, in the horizontal spillover risk, constituting two incomplete contracts coordinated mechanism to incent the information goods supply chain R&D investment cooperation with the solutions of optimal contract clauses, analyzing the strategic effect of cooperative R&D investment from information goods firms in two incomplete contracts, and studying the coordinated effectiveness of nonlinear transfer payment contract and perfect sharing contract.(4) From the perspective of government regulation behavior and economic incentive behavior, it studies how to solve the externality problem in information goods supply chain cooperative innovation. It proposes to take the behavioral doctrine policy substituting for the structure doctrine policy and then analyzes the impact of information goods market structure on the cooperative R&D innovation incentive and the coordinated effectiveness of supply chain contract. In the incentive policy of government subsidies, it builds two incomplete contract coordinated mechanism to incent the supply chain cooperative investment and designs optimal contract clauses. Besides, it studies the incentive effectiveness of government subsidies for nonlinear transfer payment contract and perfect sharing contract in horizontal spillover risk.