Supply chain collaboration

In the past, research in operations management focused on single-firm analysis. Its goal was to provide managers in practice with suitable tools to improve the performance of their firm by calculating optimal inventory quantities, among others. Nowadays, business decisions are dominated by the globalization of markets and increased competition among firms. Further, more and more products reach the customer through supply chains that are composed of independent firms. Following these trends, research in operations management has shifted its focus from single-firm analysis to multi-firm analysis, in particular to improving the efficiency and performance of supply chains under decentralized control. The main characteristics of such chains are that the firms in the chain are independent actors who try to optimize their individual objectives, and that the decisions taken by a firm do also affect the performance of the other parties in the supply chain. These interactions among firms’ decisions ask for alignment and coordination of actions. Therefore, game theory, the study of situations of cooperation or conflict among heterogenous actors, is very well suited to deal with these interactions. This has been recognized by researchers in the field, since there are an ever increasing number of papers that applies tools, methods and models from game theory to supply chain problems

Collaborative Models for Supply Networks Coordination and Healthcare Consolidation

This work discusses the collaboration framework among different members of two complex systems: supply networks and consolidated healthcare systems. Although existing literature advocates the notion of strategic partnership/cooperation in both supply networks and healthcare systems, there is a dearth of studies quantitatively analyzing the scope of cooperation among the members and its benefit on the global performance. Hence, the first part of this dissertation discusses about two-echelon supply networks and studies the coordination of buyers and suppliers for multi-period procurement process. Viewing the issue from the same angel, the second part studies the coordination framework of hospitals for consolidated healthcare service delivery. Realizing the dynamic nature of information flow and the conflicting objectives of members in supply networks, a two-tier coordination mechanism among buyers and suppliers is modeled. The process begins with the intelligent matching of buyers and suppliers based on the similarity of users profiles. Then, a coordination mechanism for long-term agreements among buyers and suppliers is proposed. The proposed mechanism introduces the importance of strategic buyers for suppliers in modeling and decision making process. To enhance the network utilization, we examine a further collaboration among suppliers where cooperation incurs both cost and benefit. Coalitional game theory is utilized to model suppliers\u27 coalition formation. The efficiency of the proposed approaches is evaluated through simulation studies. We then revisit the common issue, the co-existence of partnership and conflict objectives of members, for consolidated healthcare systems and study the coordination of hospitals such that there is a central referral system to facilitate patients transfer. We consider three main players including physicians, hospitals managers, and the referral system. As a consequence, the interaction within these players will shape the coordinating scheme to improve the overall system performance. To come up with the incentive scheme for physicians and aligning hospitals activities, we define a multi-objective mathematical model and obtain optimal transfer pattern. Using optimal solutions as a baseline, a cooperative game between physicians and the central referral system is defined to coordinate decisions toward system optimality. The efficiency of the proposed approach is examined via a case study

Value Creation through Co-Opetition in Service Networks

Well-defined interfaces and standardization allow for the composition of single Web services into value-added complex services. Such complex Web Services are increasingly traded via agile marketplaces, facilitating flexible recombination of service modules to meet heterogeneous customer demands. In order to coordinate participants, this work introduces a mechanism design approach - the co-opetition mechanism - that is tailored to requirements imposed by a networked and co-opetitive environment

Unfair allocation of gains under the Equal Price allocation method in purchasing groups

Certain purchasing groups do not flourish. A supposed reason for this is a creeping dissatisfaction among various members of a group with the allocation of the cooperative gains. In this paper, we analyze unfairness resulting from using the commonly used Equal Price (EP) method for allocating gains under the assumption of continuous quantity discounts. We demonstrate that this unfairness is caused by neglecting a particular component of the added value of individual group members. Next, we develop two fairness ratios and tie these to fairness properties from cooperative game theory. The ratios show among other things that being too-big a player in a purchasing group can lead to decreasing gains. They can be used to assess if EP is an unfair method in specific situations. Finally, we discuss measures a purchasing group could consider in order to attenuate perceived unfairness. Thereby, the group may improve its stability and prosperity

Sequential Bilateral Bargaining and the Shapley value

We extend Ilya Segal's work on bilateral contracting in the presence of externalities to the case of bilateral bargaining in the presence of externalities. Similarly to Segal's work, we prove our results for highly general settings, and provide examples of applications.Bargaining, Non-cooperative foundations of cooperative game theory

Core-stable Rings in Second Price Auctions with Common Values

In a common value auction in which the information partitions of the bidders are connected, all rings are core-stable. More precisely, the ex ante expected utilities of rings, at the (noncooperative) sophisticated equilibrium proposed by Einy, Haimanko, Orzach and Sela (Journal of Mathematical Economics, 2002), describe a cooperative game, in characteristic function form, in spite of the underlying strategic externalities. A ring is core-stable if the core of this characteristic function is not empty. Furthermore, every ring can implement its sophisticated equilibrium strategy by means of an incentive compatible mechanism.Auctions, Bayesian Game, Collusion, Core, Partition Form Game, Characteristic Function

The Maximal Payoff and Coalition Formation in Coalitional Games

This paper first establishes a new core theorem using the concept of generated payoffs: the TU (transferable utility) core is empty if and only if the maximum of generated payoffs (mgp) is greater than the grand coalition’s payoff v(N), or if and only if it is irrational to split v(N). It then provides answers to the questions of what payoffs to split, how to split the payoff, what coalitions to form, and how long each of the coalitions will be formed by rational players in coalitional TU games. Finally, it obtains analogous results in coalitional NTU (non-transferable utility) games.Coalition Formation, Core, Maximal Payoff, Minimum No-Blocking Payoff