Production Outsourcing Of Manufacturers From Behavioral Perspective: Computational Experiments

The behavior preferences of the main members increase the uncertainty of the supply chain system,affect the principal members' incomes,and aggravate the complexity of the decision-making process.It is necessary to adopt appropriate models and methods for research,and the computational experiment method can solve the related problems in supply chain management by modeling the behavior of the subject.Therefore,the method of computational experiment is used to study the problem of production outsourcing under the behavior preference.First,we analyze the impact of consumer heterogeneity on manufacturer's outsourcing.On this basis,we describe the manufacturer's production decisions under the influence of consumers' preference to low carbon and explore the impact of consumers' bounded rational behavior on manufacturers' production decisions.Then,we study the influence of manufacturers' reciprocal behavior preferences on production outsourcing decisions.Finally,we model the bounded rational behavior of outsourcing suppliers and analyze the impact of suppliers' fair preference on manufacturers' production outsourcing strategies.Chapter 2 establishes a supply chain composed of consumers,manufacturers,and suppliers.We study the impact of heterogeneous consumer purchasing behavior and group differentiation on manufacturers' outsourcing strategies.The results show that the purchasing mode of consumers will influence the manufacturers' profits.We find that manufacturers should take different production strategies with heterogeneous consumers.The manufacturer should produce the higher quality of component in-house and sell with higher price when the consumption value of the consumer is higher;otherwise,the manufacturer should outsource.The manufacturer should outsource and sell with the higher price when the diversity of consumers is large;otherwise,the manufacturer should produce the component in house and offer a lower selling price.Chapter 3 establishes the computational experiment model with consumers' low carbon preference.From the consumer utility,we obtain the actual demand of consumers' low-carbon preference.We study the impact of carbon reduction policies and consumer behavior on manufacturers' outsourcing decisions.The reinforcement learning algorithm is applied to the dynamic decision making process of manufacturers.The aim of this paper is to provide theoretical basis for the manufacturer to develop a reasonable strategy in multi-cycle decision-making.The results show that the manufacturer should produce low-carbon component in house when low-carbon preference of the consumer is higher;otherwise,the manufacturer should outsource.The manufacturer should produce low-carbon product in house when the rewards and punishments of carbon emissions is high;otherwise,the manufacturer should outsource.In addition,when the manufacturer's difficulties of reducing carbon emissions are easy,the manufacturer can produce component in-house;otherwise,the manufacturer should outsource.Chapter 4 develops a decision-making model of manufacturers' outsourcing under the mutual effect of altruistic preference and production learning utility.We study the influence of manufacturers' learning ability and altruistic preference behavior on manufacturers' production decisions from a dynamic perspective.The experimental results show that: the manufacturers should outsource when the effectiveness of production learning and the fairness concerns is not considered;otherwise,when considering the effectiveness of production learning and without consider the fairness concerns,the manufacturer should outsource for short-term production;conversely,the manufacturer should produce component in-house for long-term production.In the context of manufacturers' altruistic reciprocity preferences,product prices,manufacturer's utility,and the whole profit of the supply chain all increase as the intensity of altruistic increases.When the manufacturers and the suppliers conduct production learning,manufacturers should produce component in house under low altruistic preferences;conversely,when the manufacturers and the suppliers do not conduct production learning,the manufacturers should outsource;in addition,when the manufacturer is in a high altruistic preference,the manufacturer has no incentive to outsource long-term production.In the context of mutual altruistic preference,when the manufacturers and the suppliers conduct production learning,the manufacturer's best strategy is to produce by themselves;when the manufacturers and the suppliers do not conduct production learning,under low altruistic preference intensity,the manufacturers should outsource.On the contrary,under high altruistic preference,manufacturers' outsourcing utility is higher than self-production utility,and outsourcing profits are lower than selfproduction profits.Chapter 5 studies the effect of the suppliers' fair preference behavior on the manufacturers' outsourcing production decisions with computational experiments.The manufacturer's profit and the whole profit of the supply chain is analyzed under two different fairness concerns that distributional fairness concerns and peer induced fairness concerns of the suppliers.The results show that the different preference behaviors of the suppliers have different effects on the manufacturers' production decisions.The supplier's fairness preference will reduce the manufacturer's profit.The manufacturer should outsource production when the supplier's fairness preference is weak;otherwise,the manufacturer should adopt the self-produced strategy when the supplier's fairness preference is strong.In the same situation,the supplier's distribution fairness preference has a stronger effect on the manufacturer's profit.Chapter 6 summarizes the main results of the paper,and points out the limitations of the research and future research directions.