Coordination by Option Contracts in a Retailer-Led Supply Chain with Demand Update

This research examines how to use an option contract to coordinate a retailer-led supply chain where the market information can be updated. Based on Stackelberg game theory, we build a mode with one supplier and one retailer in which the retailer designs contracts to coordinate the supplier’s production in a two-mode production environment. This focuses on an option contract that consists of two option prices and one exercise price. By theoretical analysis and numerical example, we find that such a contract can coordinate the supplier and retailer to act in the best interest of the channel. The optimal pricing conditions are given as follows: First, option prices should be negatively correlated to the exercise price and should be in a relevant range. Second, the first-period option price should be no greater than the second-period price and should be linearly correlated to the second-period option price when the latter is beyond some threshold. The results show that such option contracts can arbitrarily allocate the extra system profit between the two parties so that each party is in a win-win situation.