Contract Design and Coordination Strategy for Software Service Supply Chain

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss the software development contract design and coordination issues under a decentralized supply chain and compare the performances of different contract forms with that of an integrated supply chain. Three types of contracts are taken into account, which are fixed-price contract, sales-incentive contract and cost-sharing contract. The impact of these contract types on the profit of the supply chain, as well as the incentive mechanism and the application environment of these contracts is investigated. The results indicate that cost-sharing contract has the highest incentive level, which can achieve the performance under integrated supply chain; fixed-price contract is most suitable to the situation where software users pay less attention to the quality and more attention to the price of software, and where the costs of software development are higher; sales-incentive contract is most suitable to the situation where software users pay more attention to the quality and less attention to the price of software, as well as where the costs of software development are lower; cost-sharing contract is most applicable to the situation where it is convenient to monitor and measure the costs of software development.

Key words: software service supply chain, software development, contract design, software quality, pricing

摘要： 考虑了整合式软件服务供应链和分散式软件服务供应链两种模式,以整合供应链为基准对分散供应链下的软件开发合同设计与协调问题进行了研究。在分散供应链下,分析了固定价格合同、销量激励合同和成本分担合同三种合同对供应链收益的影响,探索了这些合同的激励机制,考察了这些合同的适用环境。研究表明:三种合同中,成本分担合同对软件开发商的激励最高,达到了整合供应链下的协调水平;固定价格合同适用于软件用户对质量不太注重而对价格比较敏感、以及开发成本较高的情形,销量激励合同适用于软件用户对质量比较注重而对价格不太敏感、以及开发成本较低的情形,成本分担合同适用于平台运营商易于监测软件开发商开发成本的情形。

关键词: 软件服务供应链, 软件开发, 合同设计, 软件质量, 定价

CLC Number:

F272.3

ZHANG Zong-ming, LIAO Xiu-wu, LIU Shu-lin. Contract Design and Coordination Strategy for Software Service Supply Chain[J]. Operations Research and Management Science, 2013, 22(2): 34-43.

张宗明, 廖貅武, 刘树林. 软件服务供应链合同设计与协调策略[J]. 运筹与管理, 2013, 22(2): 34-43.

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