Equilibrium supply chain structures in the presence of asymmetric manufacturer capabilities in service efficacy and provision
研究了在制造商服务效能和服务提供能力不对称时，混合供应链结构（一个整合、一个分散）何时成为纳什均衡，发现产品中度可替代且一家制造商在服务提供上占优时才会出现。
In 2012, Tesla Motors announced that it would pursue company owned stores, while major automobile manufacturers, such as Ford and Honda, employ the traditional dealership model. Adding ‘service’ to the McGuire-Staelin duopoly game as another competitive instrument to ‘price’, this paper studies the role of service in shaping an equilibrium supply chain structure to show if and when a mixed supply chain structure of one integrated supply chain and one decentralized supply chain becomes an equilibrium outcome. Our model incorporates asymmetric manufacturer capabilities in service efficacy and provision, where service efficacy refers to the effectiveness of generating a higher demand for a given service level and service provision the cost-efficiency in producing service. Our results show that a mixed supply chain structure emerges as a Nash equilibrium outcome only if two products are moderately substitutable and one manufacturer is superior to the other in service provision with the former downward integrating and the latter decentralizing. Under this scenario, the superior manufacturer raises its profits by investing in service provision capabilities, widening the gap with its opponent, and furthermore, the superior manufacturer compensates for a less differentiated product if it is capable of providing service far more cheaply than its opponent.