Promoting Service Quality via Supplier Competition and Incentive Contracts

这项研究项目考察了买家如何在潜在供应商之间分配需求，以促进高质量的服务。研究活动分为三个领域：(1)制定供应商之间服务竞争的一般框架，该框架将考虑选择供应商和分配需求的各种服务标准和各种形式的供应商努力，如库存、产能和劳动力培训；(2)审查影响服务水平的非竞争性合同，并将这些合同的执行情况与各种基于竞争的方案进行比较；(3)通过一系列涉及人类受试者的实验，评估所开发理论中可能存在的行为差距。前两个部分本质上是分析性的，需要将经济学和博弈论概念与排队和库存理论结合起来。最后一个组件来自行为理论，并测试我们的分析结果对人类实现的健壮性。该项目还包括对五个行业地点目前如何构建供应商竞争和激励合同的初步实证调查，并将涉及与香港研究人员的国际合作。如果成功，该项目将产生一套准则，供采购专业人员在管理其供应商选择和需求分配决定时使用。分析性研究将深入了解在不同市场环境下，哪些类型的竞争或基于激励的计划对买家和供应商最有效。对于正在考虑采用基于服务的合同或建立基于服务的竞争的买家和供应商来说，试验性游戏将成为一个有用的培训工具。总框架还将为未来在供应管理领域工作的研究人员提供路线图。这项研究将通过研究生和本科生的参与以及通过开发课程材料和教学电脑游戏来提供教育益处。

This research project examines how a buyer should allocate demand across potential suppliers to promote high quality service. The research activities are organized into three areas: (1) developing a general framework for service competition among suppliers that will take into account a variety of service criteria for selecting suppliers and allocating demand and various forms of supplier effort such as inventory, capacity, and workforce training; (2) examining noncompetitive contracts for influencing service levels and comparing the performance of these contracts against various competition-based schemes; and (3) assessing possible behavioral gaps in the developed theory through a series of experiments involving human subjects. The first two components are analytical in nature and require combining economic and game theoretic concepts with queueing and inventory theory. The last component draws from behavioral theory and tests the robustness of our analytical results to human implementation. The project also includes an initial empirical investigation of how supplier competition and incentive contracts are currently structured at five industry sites, and will involve international collaboration with researchers in Hong-Kong. If successful, the project will yield a set of guidelines that procurement professionals can use in managing their supplier selection and demand allocation decisions. The analytical research will provide insight into what types of competition or incentive-based schemes are most effective for buyers and suppliers in different market environments. The experimental games will serve as a useful training tool for buyers and suppliers who are considering adopting service-based contracts or setting up service-based competitions. The general framework will also provide a roadmap for future researchers working in the supply management field. The research will offer educational benefits through the participation of graduate and undergraduate students and through the development of course materials and a teaching computer game.