News Resource: School of Management and Economics

Editor: News Agency of BIT

Translator: Gao Xinyuan, News Agency of BIT

In recent days, Professor Li Guo and Doctor Zheng Hong, School of Management and Economics of BIT collaborated with Associate Professor Tian lin, School of Management of Fudan University. Their research finding, "Information Sharing in an Online Marketplace with Co-opetitive Sellers", is formally published in the journal of Production and Operations Management.

Based on the existence of co-opetitive supply chain structures in the online marketplaces, this paper explores the information sharing strategy of e-commerce platforms, and reveals that the co-opetition relationship between manufacturer and reseller not only changes the preference of supply chain firms considering different information sharing strategies, but further impacts information sharing equilibrium in the game. The research found that, firstly, as for e-commerce platforms, despite consignment channel coordinates the sales motivation of with upstream seller, complete information sharing is not always the best information sharing strategy. Under certain conditions, e-commerce platforms will prefer only sharing information with manufacturers. Secondly, as for manufacturers, having information superiority over resellers will harm their interests. Thirdly, as for resellers, under certain conditions, it benefits from the strategy of e-commerce platforms that only share information with manufacturers. This is because there is a cooperative relationship between the manufacturer and the reseller, and the information superiority that the manufacturer has will lead to a signal game between the two, which is ultimately beneficial to the reseller. Fourthly, by analyzing the information sharing equilibrium in the game, the research found that when the degree of market demand changes is low, market demand information will be shared with manufacturers and resellers. However, when the degree of market demand changes is relatively high, market demand information will be shared with manufacturers.

The research innovatively explores the influence of the digital economy's competition and cooperation structure on the information sharing strategy of e-commerce platforms. Related research findings are the useful supplement to information disclosure and information sharing theory, and are able to provide theoretical basis and decision support for relevant Chines enterprises to rely on management innovation and optimization to achieve a win-win situation in the new era of digital economy. In addition, the research also carries out quantitative analysis on the strategic behaviors of various parties in the digital economy in response to the differences in information between each other, which will help to understand the deep-seated driving forces of the interaction of between companies in the digital economy era. It will provide quantitative support and management suggestions for relevant functional departments to formulate more reasonable and scientific digital information supervision policies, and help the high quality and healthy development of China’s digital economy.

Production and Operations Management (POM) is the journal of the American Production and Operations Management Association (POMS), a top journal in the field of production and operations management and enjoys a high academic reputation in the international management circle. The journal is one of the 24 top academic journals selected by the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD 24) . The UTD 24 list covers the main majors of school of business of general universities. It is generally used as the main basis for School of business rankings, promotion of professional titles, and evaluation of various projects and talent plans. The catalog is also an important reference condition for the selection of important talent program projects such as the China’s Ministry of Management Science of the National Natural Science Foundation and the Management Discipline of the Ministry of Education. At the same time, POM is also one of the 50 top academic journals in business schools rated by the Financial Times (Financial Times 50 Journals, referred to as FT50). FT50 is an important basis for the Financial Times to rank business schools. POM is also a 4-star journal selected by the Association of British Business Schools (ABS).

Guo Li, Lin Tian, Hong Zheng. Information Sharing in an Online Marketplace with Co-opetitive Sellers. Production and Operations Management, 2021, 30(10), 3713-3734.

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/poms.13460