Impacts of information sharing on supply chain decisions under the channel competitions

This paper examines impacts of information sharing on decisions of two competing supply chains, which are identical, each consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer, except they might have different information sharing structures. In the two-stage game, three types of information sharing structures, that is, information sharing in both of supply chains, information sharing in one supply chain and no information sharing in the two supply chains are designed, and the equilibrium solutions of supply chain members as well as their profits are analyzed by mathematical models. Results show that there might be quantity distortions in the asymmetric information settings compared with the full information, and both manufacturers will choose to leave the high-demand market in order to avoid paying information rent in the high-demand market when facing asymmetric information environment.