Study On Operations Strategies Based On Competition And Cooperation Relationship In Multiple Supply Chain Structures

As the world economy steps into the era of globalization and informization, fastdevelopment of technologies, diversity of consumers' demands, and scarcity ofresources jointly constitute the dynamic environment in which modern enterprisesoperate. From perspectives of vertical/horizontal competition and cooperation, thispaper investigates supply chain members' optimal operations strategies in the verticalinformation sharing, the horizontal cooperation (transshipment), and the competitivesupply chains respectively under different supply chain structures, further enriching theresearch in the field of supply chain management.First, as for the vertical information sharing in a supply chain without horizontalcompetition, this paper establishes an information sharing model to study how amanufacturer acquires a retailer's private information about the demand. We show thatthe ability of a Two-part tariff contract to realize information sharing depends on theretailer's reserve profit, and find the conditions that the parameters of the contract haveto satisfy in order to achieve information sharing, in which the optimal strategies of themanufacturer and the retailer are the same as those under information symmetry.In addition, this paper also studies the vertical information sharing in a supplychain with horizontal competition. We establish an information sharing modelconsisting of a capacitated manufacturer and several Cournot retailers. By analyzingsupply chain members' optimal strategies, we show that the discriminated capacityallocation strategy applied by the manufacturer can promote supply chain members toengage in information sharing voluntarily, and provide the lower bound of thediscriminated allocation parameter. The results also indicate that the capacity constraintlimits the manufacturer's profit and locks the social welfare as well as the consumer'ssurplus.Furthermore, pertaining to horizontal cooperation, this paper studies thetransshipment between two retailers in the context of a supply chain. We present themanufacturer's and retailers' optimal strategies under centralized and decentralizeddecisions respectively, and find that when the manufacturer's pricing is taken into consideration, the transshipment can improve the supply chain's performance, butcannot align supply chain members' interests, so that the optimal ordering quantityunder decentralized decision cannot achieve the level under centralized decision.After discussing issues about the vertical and horizontal cooperation, this papermoves to competitive supply chains. In two parallel competitive distribution channels,we investigate effects of the move sequence on channel members' optimal decisionsand the channel's performance under deterministic and stochastic demands respectively.The results show that no matter the demand condition, second-mover advantagesalways dominate between channels and first-mover advantages prevail within eachchannel; however, the first-mover advantages within the channel will be mitigated byan increase in fluctuation of the demand and supply chain members' risk aversion.