Date：April 8th, Thursday, 2021

Start Time: 9:00

Venue: Tencent meeting (ID: 344 403 674)

Speaker: Junmin (Jim) Shi

Abstract：

Blockchain related research is still in its infancy, and is mostly focused on security and scalability. Very little of this research examines at its impact and design issues from management perspectives, especially from the perspective of Supply Chain Management (SCM). To investigate the impact of blockchain technology (BCT) on SCM and the inherent design issues, we consider a generic stochastic model, where a firm seeks to maximize the total expected discounted profit, by jointly managing (i) block chain design, (ii) production and ordering decisions, and (iii) dynamic pricing and selling. We first show that the deployment of BCT can assist firms in reducing order quantities, lowering selling prices and reducing target-inventory levels. It is also shown that volatility of either supply or demand lowers the expected profit. The analysis is robust with some major extensions, such as lost-sales of demand and random capacity. Finally, our numerical study accumulates useful managerial insights. For example, subject to tech-savvy customer behavior, some types of goods (e.g., credence goods and experience goods) greatly benefit from the adoption of BCT, but it may not prove beneficial to leverage BCT for certain others (e.g., search goods). Considering the lifecycle of a typical good, it is recommended to adopt BCT as early as possible and to adopt it to a higher degree at an earlier stage.