Incentive provision for demand information acquisition in a dual-channel supply chain

Abstract This paper studies an endogenous adverse selection model in a dual-channel supply chain setting, in which the manufacturer can offer a menu of contracts to induce the retailer to costly acquire private demand information. We derive the manufacturer’s optimal incentive provision decision and show that although the increase of acquisition cost results in higher distortion effect on the retailer’s selling quantity, such a distortion effect can be alleviated in a dual-channel setting. The manufacturer’s incentive provision exhibits a threshold policy. When demand variation is high and information acquisition cost is low, acquiring demand information does not necessarily benefit the retailer.