The interaction between manufacturer-encroachment and information sharing in a closed-loop supply chain under technology licensing

This paper investigates the interaction between a retailer’s information sharing behaviour and a manufacturer’s encroachment strategies in a closed-loop supply chain in which the manufacturer licenses a third party to remanufacture. We apply the Stackelberg game to obtain the optimal pricing and production decisions and show that, information sharing always brings a profit increase to the manufacturer while a profit loss to the retailer. The retailer may be willing to share information in presence of manufacturer encroachment. We also show that, no matter whether the manufacturer remanufactures by himself or licenses the third party to remanufacture, the encroachment case is always profitable to the manufacturer due to the dual revenues from both the producing and marketing activities. In addition, whether the encroachment case is beneficial for the retailer is contingent on the encroachment cost. Specifically, when the encroachment cost is high enough, the encroachment case dominates the no-encroachment case because the manufacturer prefers to sell more products through the traditional retail channel rather than the direct selling channel. These results provide a new insight into information sharing and manufacturer-encroachment in a closed-loop supply chain.