Trust Based Information Sharing In Supply Chain

Information sharing is among the most active and important areas of research in supply chain management.The effectiveness of information sharing affects the quality of decision-making in supply chain and plays an important role in improving supply chain performance.It is difficult for supply chain members to share real information because of their own interests or business confidentiality,so the recipient of the information will not fully trust the shared information.In order to encourage the supply chain members to share information truthfully,various contracts and incentive mechanisms are provided.Due to the high complexity of the contracts and incentive mechanisms,it is difficult to implement or execute in operations.The decisions of the supply chain members deviate from the theoretical equilibrium point.In reality,many supply chain companies rely on simple wholesale price contract to share information and achieve good results through cheap talk communication which is a costless,nonbinding,and nonverifiable type of communication.Some scholars provide an explanation for this kind of cheap talk from the perspective of human behavior characteristics,that is,supply chain members modify the shared information through trust,and make corresponding decisions based on the revised information.Therefore,research on supply chain information sharing from the perspective of trust is more in line with the actual operation of supply chain enterprises.With advanced information technology,supply chain enterprises can share a variety of information,but the effective sharing of some key information plays a crucial role in supply chain enterprise decision-making and operational performance.The effective sharing of demand forecasting information is directly related to the manufacturer's strategic capacity decision.The accuracy of supply forecasting information affects a series of decisions such as ordering levels,distribution plans and inventory strategies of downstream companies in the supply chain.Production cost information and sales cost information relate to the enterprise's technical level and management ability,which affects the negotiation ability of enterprises.It is often confidential information and difficult to share.However,these cost information directly affect product pricing decisions,which in turn affects the competitiveness of enterprises.Therefore,for supply chain inter-enterprise demand forecasting information,supply forecasting information,production cost information and sales cost information,the above-mentioned information sharing mechanism among supply chain enterprises is studied from the perspective of trust,and a trust-based supply chain information sharing model is constructed,which supports the actual operations of enterprise and has important practical guiding significance.For the first time,this paper introduces trust into the research of production cost information and sales cost information sharing in supply chain,expands the research scope of supply chaininformation sharing theory and trust theory,and builds trust-based price discount contract,buy-back contract and revenue-sharing contract to coordinate the supply chain.The trust-based supply chain information sharing and coordination model analyzes the impact of trust and contract on supply chain decision-making and performance,which has important theoretical value.The contents and innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)Demand prediction information sharing coordination model based on trust and price discount.For a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer,a coordination model based on trust and price discount was established in a single-cycle and multi-cycle environment,respectively.It is assumed that before the sales season,the retailer forecasts the market demand and reports it to the manufacturer,and the manufacturer determines its own capacity accordingly.When the sales season comes,the retailer places a formal order.The manufacturer determines the trust in the retailer by comparing the difference between the predicted and actual values,and then determines the wholesale price discount to the retailer.The algorithm for solving single-cycle and multi-period models is given separately,and combined with numerical examples for analysis.The research results show that there is the best demand forecast report value for the retailer when the upper limit of the discount ratio is determined;If the price discount ratio is appropriate,the supply chain members can achieve better performance than sharing the real forecast information.This paper introduces the price discount contract into the supply chain information sharing coordination model for the first time,and proposes a new trust degree calculation method based on the characteristics of price discount contract.(2)Supply forecasting information sharing coordination model based on trust and buy-back contract.A single-cycle supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer is used to study the impact of trust on supply forecasting information sharing and the coordination role of buy-back contract in the supply chain.Research shows that the retailer's trust in manufacturer affects the supply information sharing,which in turn affects supply chain performance;the greater the psychological negative utility coefficient of manufacturer lying is,the more he tends to tell the truth;the buy-back contract can promote manufacturer to share real information;when the manufacturer's psychological negative utility coefficient is large,there is an optimal buy-back price to achieve perfect coordination of the supply chain.For the first time,this paper regards trust as a continuum in the supply forecasting information sharing model,and uses the buy-back contract to coordinate the supply chain.(3)Production cost information sharing coordination model based on trust and revenue-sharing contracts.A single-cycle supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer is used to study the decision-making and performance of supply chain members in three cases that the production cost information is symmetric,the production cost information asymmetric and trust degree is constant,the production cost informationasymmetry and trust degree is variable when the manufacturer and the retailer is the leader respectively,and research the impact of revenue-sharing contracts on supply chain coordination.The research shows that under decentralized decision the supply chain profit when the production cost information is symmetric is better than that when the trust degree is variable;when the trust degree is variable,the supply chain profit is not inferior to that when the trust degree is constant;no matter who is the leader,the evaluation mechanism with trust degree as a variable can improve the performance of the supply chain;the revenue-sharing contract can perfectly coordinate the supply chain under all of the three situations.For the first time,this paper introduces trust into the research of production cost information sharing,and proposes a new trust degree calculation method,and combines the revenue-sharing contract to coordinate supply chain.(4)Sales cost information sharing coordination model based on trust and revenue-sharing contracts.For a single-cycle supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer,an analysis approach similar to trust-based production cost information sharing coordination model is used to discuss supply chain decisions in different situations when the manufacturer and the retailer is the leader respectively and to study the coordination performance of the revenue-sharing contract on the supply chain when the sales cost information is asymmetric.Studies have shown that when the manufacturer is the leader and the trust degree is constant,the degree of trust has no effect on the profit of the supply chain;when the trust degree is constant and the retailer is the leader,the retailer uses its first mover advantage and information advantage to let the manufacturer's profit is zero,the retailer obtains the full profit of the centralized supply chain;no matter who is the leader,the trust can effectively restrain the distortion of the sales cost information;the revenue-sharing contract can perfectly coordinate the supply chain in three situations.This paper introduces trust into the research of sales cost information sharing for the first time,and analyzes the coordination effect of revenue-sharing contract on supply chain.