Date of Award

8-1-2013

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Department

Business Administration

First Advisor

Ehsan Elahi

Second Advisor

Davood Golmohammadi

Third Advisor

Atreya Chakraborty

Abstract

Through laboratory experiments, this paper intends to evaluate the theoretical predictions about the impact of competition parameters on the intensity of the supplier competition. We consider the competition of suppliers for the demand share of a single buyer. The buyer allocates her demand based on the service level that she receives from its suppliers. We consider three competition types: service competition, inventory competition and optimal competition. Our experimental results show that the subjects converge to an equilibrium point that is different from the theoretical results. The experimental results, however, show the same trend of change due to changes in competition parameter as the theoretical results show. We propose what phenomenon would have caused this deviation in the supplier's behavior. This paper also discusses limitations and provides suggestions for further research.

Comments

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