Time: 9:00-11:00, 19 June 2025
Speaker: Dr. Chunming Shi holds a Ph.D. in Operations Management from Washington State University, a Master of Engineering from the National University of Singapore, and double bachelor's degrees in engineering and business administration from the University of Science and Technology of China. He is currently a tenured Full Professor and a PhD supervisor in the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. He twice served as Chair of the Management Science Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, and has served as special issue editor for several top journals. His research advocates recognizing partial centralization as a distinct supply chain structure with theoretical significance and practical value for firms developing differentiated governance strategies in diversified and competitive business environments.
Abstract:
Most supply chain management research assumes complete centralization or complete decentralization but omits the commonly adopted partial centralization. With partial centralization, a firm owns a portion, but not all, of its partner. To help fill this research gap, this paper analyzes a supply chain where a durable-goods manufacturer owns a portion of its downstream retailer. We find that, first, partial centralization can become the equilibrium structure for a durable-good supply chain. Second, the manufacturer's optimal ownership share in the retailer decreases in the product durability and decision horizon length, implying that complete decentralization is more likely to be the supply chain structure in equilibrium for higher product durability and longer decision horizon. Finally, we discuss the research stream on the strategic benefits of firm and supply chain centralization.
