Information structures and pricing decisions in competing supply chains

Abstract

The paper investigates the pricing decisions of two competing supply chains under the different information structures. Each retailer has private information about the market demand and has the right to decide whether or not to share the information with the manufacturer. Three demand-information structures, i.e., information sharing in both supply chains, information sharing in only one supply chain and information sharing in neither supply chain, are considered. We investigate the value of information by comparing the information structures, and find that the information value not only works in the channel directly, but also does in the competing channel indirectly. Information sharing in a supply chain always benefits its manufacturer, but hurts its retailer; while it benefits both the manufacturer and the retailer of competing supply chain, regardless of whether this competing supply chain has information sharing. From the perspective of channel, when the competition is more intense, information sharing in a supply chain makes this supply chain better off, and when the competition is less intense, the information sharing in a supply chain makes this supply chain worse off. However, it always makes the competing supply chain better off regardless of whether the competing supply chain has information sharing.