Contracting for Capacity under Renegotiation: Partner Preferences and the Value of Anticipating Renegotiation

This paper studies contract renegotiation in a stylized supply chain model. Two original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) sign fixed‐quantity contracts with a contract manufacturer (CM) prior to demand realization. Contract renegotiation after demand realization allows the OEMs to use capacity that is more or less than what they contracted for. We assume that the extra profit due to efficient allocation of capacity is allocated to the supply chain parties according to the egalitarian rule and investigate when an OEM's expected post‐renegotiation profit is maximized. We aim to understand how an OEM's expected post‐renegotiation profit is affected by her ability to negotiate a low wholesale price in the initial contract as well as the ability of the other OEM to do the same. Regardless of whether renegotiation is anticipated or not at the time of the initial contract, we find that an OEM, who had weak buyer power vis‐a‐vis the CM and was unable to negotiate a low wholesale price in the initial contract, may benefit more from renegotiation than a stronger OEM. In addition, we show that how the expected post‐renegotiation profit of an OEM changes with demand variance or anticipating renegotiation depends on the strength of the OEM's buyer power. Finally, we numerically test the robustness of our results in a supply chain with three OEMs and also identify when the OEMs prefer to leave the CM out of the renegotiation.