Information disclosure structure in supply chains with rental service platforms in the blockchain technology era

By Tsan-Ming (Jason) Choi, Lipan Feng, Rong Li. 2020

296 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract In platform operations for rental services, product information disclosure (supported by the blockchain technology) is critical to attract customers. We build a stylized duopoly model to analyze the product-information-disclosure Nash game between two rental service platforms whose products-to-rent are substituble. We derive the equilibrium level of product information disclosure and identify conditions under which the platforms choose to disclose or not to disclose information, which correspond to different types of supply chains. For the basic model, we find that there exists a critical threshold on the information-sensitive consumers which helps each platform decide whether or not to disclose product information. If the information auditing cost is sufficiently small, both platforms should disclose the product information as much as possible. For products with higher profit margin, both platforms are more likely to disclose information. We also explore the impacts of product information disclosure on the consumer surplus and seller benefits, and discuss the roles played by the blockchain technology. To check robustness of the results as well as to examine different supply chain configurations, we extend the analysis to the cases including (i) the platforms are risk averse in decision making, (ii) rather than selling the product, the seller (owner of the product) consigns the product to the platform and shares a revenue, and (iii) rather than two competing platforms, there is a common rental service platform providing service for two substitutable products. We find that the core insights remain valid in all the extended models. Managerial implications are discussed.

Subfields: Information Systems, Management Information Systems, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7aa6e4aba4872d51988935d5147f5237f45128cb

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Citations in the corpus

Impact of supply chain digitalization on supply chain resilience and performance: A multi-mediation model (2023, background): “technologies to the production and distribution of products will improve the level of product information disclosure, thus increasing the trust of sensitive consumers, stimulating their purchase desire, and increasing consumer surplus, which improves SCP accordingly (Choi et al., 2020).”
A literature review of blockchain technology applications in supply chains: A comprehensive analysis of themes, methodologies and industries (2021, unknown): “In the numerical example category, there are 12 articles that considered cost or profit when the objective function was established (Choi, 2019; Choi, Feng, et al., 2020; Choi & Luo, 2019; Choi et al., 2019; Hayrutdinov et al., 2020; Ko et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019; L. Liu et al., 2019; Longo et…”
Analysis of resilience strategies and ripple effect in blockchain-coordinated supply chains: An agent-based simulation study (2020, unknown): “Choi et al. (2020) argue that BCT helps reduce information audit costs, increases information awareness on the customer ’ s side, and thus reduces demand volatility.”
Blockchain adoption in operations and supply chain management: empirical evidence from an emerging economy (2020, background): “…SCM and international trade operations and transactions (Yoon et al. 2020), as well as in platform operations for rental services in SCMs, and it was found to play a vital role in supporting and ensuring trustworthiness between product/service providers and customers (Choi, Feng, and Li 2019).”
Blockchain technology in supply chain operations: Applications, challenges and research opportunities (2020, unknown): “Choi (2020b) has examined how service operations can be conducted on a truck in the “bring-service-to-your-home” mode of operations.”