Competition, collaboration, and control of decision rights in supply chains

多公司供应链的管理、协调和设计是工业工程师、运营和供应链经理以及经济学家感兴趣的话题。传统上，这一领域的研究主要集中在运营决策的最优控制上，如供应链中的库存管理。所使用的方法在很大程度上依赖于优化理论。在过去的十年中，新的研究通过纳入激励问题来扩充这一文献。这种额外的关注得到博弈论的支持，并认识到所有供应链都由多个独立的决策者和个体决策者最大化自身利益组成。

The management, coordination, and design of multi-firm supply chains are topics of interest to industrial engineers, operations and supply chain managers, and economists. Traditionally, research in this area has focused on the optimal control of operational decisions such as the management of inventories in a supply chain. The methodology used has relied heavily on optimization theory. In the last decade new research has augmented this literature by incorporating the issue of incentives. This additional focus is supported by game theory, and recognizes the fact that all supply chains consist of multiple independent decision makers and individual decision makers maximize their self-interest. Both approaches are important to help identify and eliminate supply chain inefficiencies but each implicitly assumes that the structure of the supply chain is predetermined; either a centralized decision maker exists, or multiple decision makers exist. In addition, the models assume that the control of supply chain decisions is predetermined. For example, in a typical supply chain model, a manufacturer sells a product to a retailer and the retailer makes the inventory decision while the manufacturer specifies the contract. In reality, the structure of the supply chain and the allocation of supply chain decision rights are themselves decision variables. In the above example, the firms may choose to vertically integrate thereby converting a decentralized supply chain to a centralized one. Even if the structure of the supply chain is unchanged, the allocation of decision rights may be modified and the manufacturer, for example, may be making the inventory decision. This NSERC research proposal will explore issues related to the structure of supply chains, and the allocation of decision rights in these chains. Specifically, the research proposed here will investigate: 1) who owns and controls inventory decisions in a supply chain, and why; 2) who controls the logistics function in a supply chain and what are the implications of this control; 3) what incentives can be put in place to encourage competitors in a supply chain to collaborate; and 4) how can collaboration be maintained among competitors?