Stability of information‐sharing alliances in a three‐level supply chain

In their recent article, Leng and Parlar (L&P) (2009) analyze information‐sharing alliances in a three‐level supply chain (consisting of a manufacturer, a distributor, and a retailer) that faces a nonstationary end demand. Supply chain members can share demand information, which reduces information distortion and thus decreases their inventory holding and shortage costs. We expand the results from L&P by considering dynamic (farsighted) stability concepts. We use two different allocation rules and show that under some reasonable assumptions there should always be some information sharing in this supply chain. We also identify conditions under which the retailer in a stable outcome shares his demand information with the distributor, with the manufacturer, or with both remaining supply chain members. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2010