文献类型：期刊文献

英文题名：Transparency of Information Acquisition in a Supply Chain

作者：Li, Tian[1];Tong, Shilu[2];Zhang, Hongtao[2]

机构：[1]E China Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Business, Shanghai 200237, Peoples R China;[2]Hong Kong Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Business & Management, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Peoples R China

年份：2014

卷号：16

期号：3

起止页码：412

外文期刊名：M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

收录：;EI(收录号：20143117999637);WOS:【SSCI(收录号:WOS:000343747600006)，SCI-EXPANDED(收录号:WOS:000343747600006)】；

基金：The authors thank the editor-in-chief, the associate editor, and two reviewers for their helpful comments and constructive suggestions. Tian Li's research is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 71301050] and the Shanghai Pujiang Program [Grant 13PJC022]. Hongtao Zhang's research is supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong General Research Fund [Grants 622107 and 644009].

语种：英文

外文关键词：transparency; market research; confidentiality; supply chain

摘要：A firm hires a consultant to acquire demand information. The outcome of information acquisition may turn out to be successful such that the firm learns much about the market demand, thus becoming "informed," or unsuccessful such that it learns very little about the market demand, thus remaining "uninformed." After the outcome becomes clear, the firm knows its information status, informed or uninformed, and the information content if informed. The client firm usually requires strict confidentiality that forbids the consultant to make any disclosure about the information acquisition, believing that greater informational advantage will surely be to its own benefits. As a result, neither the information content nor the information status is known to any third party. But should the firm always care so much about strict confidentiality? Will it be beneficial if the firm's information status, but not the information content, is known to its partners or any other firms? We investigate this issue in the context of a two-tier supply chain. A manufacturer offers a menu of contracts for supplying a product to a retailer who sells it in a market with random demand that has a known continuous distribution. The retailer hires a consultant to acquire demand information, with uncertain outcome. With probability t, the retailer becomes informed about the market demand, and with probability 1 - t, he remains uninformed, where the probability t can be regarded as representing the retailer's information acquisition capability. We find that disclosing its information status benefits the retailer if its information acquisition capability is less than stellar and the market variability is intermediate. Our investigation shows that there are benefits that are foregone by following strict confidentiality but can potentially be recovered by switching to a policy of partial confidentiality.