基于外资制造业回流现象的采购竞争策略研究

In the past few decades, many firms move their production activities from developed countries to China due to its low labor cost. However, the recent two or three years have witnessed the manufacturing "reshoring" or "backshoring" trend. That is, many international manufacturers are moving their production activities from China or other emerging economies back to their own countries, or choosing domestic suppliers rather than the far-away international ones. A frequently cited reason is the rising labor cost in China or other emerging economies. This may only partially explain the backshoring trend and for sure there are other economic factors that play a role. Motivated by this phenomenon, we study a sourcing competition model. The majority of studies in the sourcing literature consider a single firm's sourcing problem, while there is little work on sourcing strategies in a competitive setting, which is oftentimes the real business case. We use a general model to analyze firms' optimal sourcing strategies under competition, the impact of various factors (e.g., market size, global raw material prices, demand uncertainty, information structure) on firms' supplier selection decisions, the impact of backshoring on other firms' performances in the industry，and suppliers' optimal pricing when facing downstream sourcing competition. We expect our theoretical results to not only explain the current backshoring trend, but also provide managerial insights on supplier selection, information capability investment, and pricing for Chinese firms to better compete in the global market.

近二十年来，凭借相对低廉的劳动力成本，我国吸引了大量发达国家制造企业将其生产产能迁移到中国或者从中国制造商处采购。而近两三年来外资制造企业回流本土现象显著。一般的认识将其归因于中国制造成本的升高。这种认识从单角度考虑问题，是不全面的。我们从此现象出发，研究竞争环境下的采购（供应商选择）策略。无竞争环境下的采购策略研究是近几年的一个热点，而更接近商业现实的竞争环境下的采购策略研究比较欠缺。我们采用一个通用性较强的模型，定量地分析在竞争环境中企业最优的采购策略，各种因素（如市场规模，全球原材料价格，需求波动性，信息结构）对于企业采购策略的影响，企业做出外包或者外包回流决策对同行业其它企业的影响，以及供应商面对下游企业的采购博弈如何最优定价。我们期望理论分析的结果不仅能更全面地解释当前的外资制造业回流现象，而且能为中国企业更好地参与国际市场竞争提供采购，信息投资，定价方面的决策参考。

课题按计划进行，执行情况顺利，完成了原定目标，并且拓展了研究广度。课题在研究深度和广度上达到了国际领先水平。本课题采用博弈论、优化理论等，研究了竞争强度、市场信息准确度和相关性对企业采购决策的影响。此外，课题组将采购问题拓展到多个情境，比如在半导体行业的采购合同问题，在炼油行业的原油采购问题，在考虑了公平因素后的采购决策问题等。这些研究问题均得到了被同行高度认可的研究成果。基于这些成果，课题负责人发表了7篇标注资助的论文。其中4篇发表于UT达拉斯商科顶级24期刊: 两篇Management Science、一篇Manufacturing and Service Operations Management，一篇Production and Operations Management。另三篇分别发表于Energy Economics、European Journal of Operational Research 和Decision Sciences。在这7篇文章中，课题负责人在其中5篇担任第一作者，在另外2篇担任通讯作者。..项目的科研成果对管理科学领域中的采购策略等的发展起到了推动作用。论文“Home or Overseas? An Analysis of Sourcing Strategies under Competition”（Wu and Zhang 2014） 获得华人学者管理科学与工程协会 (OCSAMSE) 和美国哥伦比亚大学 Chazen Institute of International Business的最佳论文一等奖。同行评审专家对该成果给出了高度评价："I believe the paper makes a significant contribution to the theory of sourcing under competition"; “I believe both these results are novel and important.” 这篇论文得到的管理借鉴被国际媒体VOX - (Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists), Business Insider和国内媒体文汇报、人民网等报导和转载，具有广泛的影响力。.