Information sharing in a transparent supply chain with transportation disruptions and supplier competition

Currently, highly complex supply networks are vulnerable to various kinds of disruptions, which may greatly affect the operational efficiency of supply chains. This calls for the development of management approaches to build a resilient supply chain under disruptions. In this work, we are mainly interested in transportation disruptions that affect shipments along a supply chain and study the decision problem of suppliers in regards to acquiring and sharing transportation disruption information in a competitive setting. In particular, we investigate a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one buyer and two competing suppliers where the buyer places an order for a single product with the two suppliers. During the product transportation process, a disruption may occur and damage the shipments in transit. In the face of such a transportation disruption, each supplier can either have its shipment inspected and reveal information to the buyer or continue without taking any action. We study this problem by formulating it as a non-cooperative game and derive equilibrium results for the two suppliers on whether or not to share information considering competition. We find that the timing and severity of the transportation disruption affect a supplier’s decision on whether to acquire and share private information. By adopting an incentive mechanism, the buyer can raise the probability that a supplier shares its information, which could eventually enhance the performance of the disrupted supply chain. The supplier in a stronger market position usually acts passively towards the disruption, while the competing supplier tends to use information sharing as a way to win market share from its competitor. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on some important parameters of our model to show the impact of information sharing on supply chain performance.