Research On The Incentive Mechanism Of Dual-channel Supply Chain With Information Asymmetry

With the continuous improvement of material life,consumers nowadays pay more attention to the product purchase experience,instead of focusing simply on the product itself,which puts forward higher requirements for the diversity of channels and the performance of additional services provided by channels.In addition,with the rapid development of market economy,it is a new requirement for manufacturers and retailers to achieve "fast,comprehensive and diversified" sales.Therefore,the simple traditional single-channel supply chain cannot meet the requirements of current market and consumers.Dual-channel supply chains with both online and offline channels,which have more functions,can meet the needs of all parties better,no matter for manufacturers,retailers or consumers.Complex channel structure can not only improve the function of a supply chain,but also bring more challenges to supply chain management and coordination.Moreover,the operation and management of a supply chain requires that the supply chain members can not only cope with the rapid development of the market demand,but also be good at processing and making good use of a variety of complex information for decision-making.All the supply chain members make their decisions based on their own information.But if they cannot grasp all the information in the market,their decisions may deviate from the optimal strategies made under the condition of complete information,eventually leading to the loss of their own interests,and affecting other members or even the whole supply chain indirectly.Information asymmetry is full of all links in the supply chain,so the impact of information asymmetry can not be ignored.Therefore,it is necessary to study how to design effective incentive mechanisms to reduce the negative impacts of information asymmetry on the operation of dual-channel supply chain.This study built several dual-channel supply chain models with both online and offline channels,to examine the incentive mechanisms of dual-channel supply chain when information asymmetry exists between manufacturers and retailers.This paper also considered the differences in the ability of physical channel and online channel when providing experiential services,and examined how different factors affect the incentive mechanisms.Therefore,this study puts forward better incentive strategies from the aspects of screening,signaling and moral hazard to alleviate the negative influence caused by information asymmetry in supply chain management and operation,and to realize the improvement of profits and strategy optimization of the whole supply chain and its members.Firstly,we analized the screening stratey in a dual-channel supply chain under ex ante information asymmetry.Chapter 3 of this paper studied the screening stratey of a dual-channel supply chain,which consists of a manufacturer and a retailer operating both online and offline channels.We designed two screening contracts—single-channel and double-channel price-limiting contracts,and compared the incentive effect of these two contracts,which are also affected by market fluctuations,market demand types and demand elasticity.It is found that the double-channel price-limiting contract leads to more downward distortions of the offline profit when the demand type is low.The impact of the double-channel price-limiting contract on the online profit is amphibolous.We also found that when the retailer’s reservation utility is related to the market type,if the market fluctuation is large enough,the manufacturer doesn’t need to pay information rent and can earn more profit.In other words,the manufacturer can achieve the profit of full information.When the game cycle between the manufacturer and the retailer is extended to two periods,the manufacturer can get more information about the retailer,which will influence the incentive mechanism in turn.Therefore,Chapter 4 of this paper studied the two-stage screening model of a dual-channel supply chain,analysed and compared the full-commitment contract and the anti-renegotiation contract.It is found that when the market type in the second period is low(high),the retailer who discloses a high demand type previously can obtain a higher price(information rent/profit)than the retailer who discloses a low demand type previously.Under some certain conditions,the full-commitment contract and anti-renegotiation contract are the same.When these two contracts are separated and the history signal is low,the high-type retailer can get higher information rent in period 2 under the anti-renegotiation contract.In other words,the anti-renegotiation contract is better than the full-commitment contract in some circumstances.Secondly,Chapter 5 analized the signaling stratey in a dual-channel supply chain under ex ante information asymmetry.We investigated signaling strategy of a manufacturer(he),who tries to convince his retailer(she)of the high-demand potential of his products,considering channel competition(open a direct online channel).We explained the incentives of the launch of the manufacture’s direct online channel as two effects: channel-competition effect and information-asymmetry effect.In this paper we incorporated retailer’s value-added services into a model,to analyze how the manufacture uses wholesale prices and slotting allowances to practice his signaling strategy under asymmetric information,in a single-and dual-channel,respectively.Based on this,comparing the players’ decisions under two channel formats,we examined the comprehensive impact of channel competition on the two effects during signaling.Our results suggest that: in these two channel structures,a upward distortion of wholesale prices and a downward distortion of slotting allowances occur when a manufacture signals his demand to the retailer,who reduces her services meanwhile;if some conditions are satisfied,channel competition can pin down the distortion of wholesale prices(i.e.,a natural separation arises more easily)and the signaling costs.At last,we investigated the incentive stratey in a dual-channel supply chain with under ex post information asymmetry—moral hazard.In the sixth chapter,we investigated the manufacturer’s incentive strategies when dealing with moral hazard from the retailer,considering the online store can free ride the experience services of the offline store,and consumers pay different attention to experience services.We compared the decisions of the retailer and the manufacturer when information is asymmetric and symmetric(moral hazad exists).It is found that in the presence of moral hazard,the retailer can get positive service compensation and lower wholesale price if high valuation is realized,while she can only get negative service compensation and higher wholesale price if low valuation is realized.When moral hazard exists and the proportion of consumers who pay attention to experience services is high enough,the stronger the free riding effect of the online store on the experience service of the offline store,the higher the incentive cost the manufacturer needs to pay.That is,the manufacturer can use higher service compensation to avoid moral hazard.Moreover,we extended the game cycle between the manufacturer and the retailer to multi period in Chapter 7.We investigated how the manufacturer makes incentive strategies to motivate the retailer to provide experience service with an effort,when he delegates the retailer to sell products in both physical store and online store.It is found that in the multi-period moral hazard game,the incentive constraints of the retailer are related to her current and next period’s profits only,and are independent of the profits of other periods.When information is asymmetric,the incentive strategies in each period are affected by the historical information in the previous period,while the information incentive strategies under the condition of complete information are not affected by the historical information.Specially,the manufacturer can encourage the retailer by taking some deposit in previous period and returning the utility then according to the realization of demand.Therefore,the manufacturer can postpone the payment of incentive cost and shift the risk to the next period.