Research On Principal-Agent Mechanism Design In Virtual-Product Supply Chains Considering Risk Preference And Sales Effort

With the rapid development of the Internet,there are more and more consumers of online shopping.The online platform connects content providers and customers,and plays an increasingly important role in the trading of goods and services.This paper uses the principal-agent model to study the mechanism design problem between the content provider and the platform operator.The main contents and innovations of this paper are as follows:First,we study the mechanism design problem between a risk-neutral supplier and a risk-averse retailer in virtual product supply chain.The wholesale price contract and two-part tariff contract are designed respectively.The effect of two types of contracts and the risk attitude on the participants' profits is analyzed,and the performance of two types of contracts is compared.The results show that both the supplier and the whole supply chain prefer to the two-part tariff contract.The retailer prefers to the wholesale price contract when the retailer is low risk-averse,whereas two types of contracts have no effect on the retailer's utility when the retailer is high risk-averse,which is equal to the retailer's reservation utility.The consumers prefer to the two-part tariff contract when the retailer is low risk-averse,whereas the consumers prefer to the wholesale price contract when the retailer is high risk-averse.Second,we study the principal-agent problem between a risk-averse software developer and a risk-averse platform provider.The impact of both parties' risk attitude on contract design is analyzed.The results show that the platform provider's optimal unit margin,optimal sales-effort level and expected utility are increasing in the software developer's risk attitude,whereas they are decreasing in the platform provider's risk attitude.The optimal unit wholesale price and the software developer's expected utility are decreasing in the software developer's risk attitude,whereas their monotonicity in the platform provider's risk attitude is related to the sensitivity coefficient.Third,we study the contract mechanism design problem of supply chain consisting of a risk-neutral manufacturer and a risk-aware retailer under double asymmetric information.Four different scenarios are analyzed,and the value of asymmetric information is obtained.The results show that the manufacturer would increase(decrease)the ratio of revenue sharing allocated to the aggressive retailer(conservative retailer)enough.In addition,the results show that the more aggressive(more conservative)the retailer is,the more(less)the manufacturer pays to the retailer for obtaining information about the basic market demand,and the manufacturer can earn less(more)by understanding information about the retailer's sales-effort level.When the aggressive retailer knows the basic market demand information higher than a certain level,the more aggressive the retailer is,the greater the value of the hidden information gains.Finally,we study the contract design problem between between an information service online platform and a content provider under uncertain environment,and both of them are risk-aware.The influence of uncertain factors on optimal contract is discussed.The results show that when the platform operator and the content provider have the same risk attitude,the platform operator need not contract the content provider's effort level.Whereas both parties have different risk attitudes,it is beneficial to the platform operator to contract the content provider's effort level,especially,the greater the gap between the two parties' risk attitudes,the greater the information value when the contract stipulates the content provider's effort level.