A review on supply chain contracting with information considerations: information updating and information asymmetry

Supply chain contracting and the use of information are undoubtedly two critical and influential areas in modern supply chain management. However, relatively little is known about supply chain contracting mechanisms with different information settings. To fill this gap, we review and classify the related supply chain contracting literature into three categories with respect to different kinds of information considerations, namely (i) demand information updating, (ii) supply information updating and (iii) information asymmetry. We report the publication trend and classify the commonly studied supply chain contracts with the use of information such as pricing contracts, commitment contracts and menu of contracts. We discuss how contracting and the use of information influence each other in the supply chain. Moreover, we review the major application areas of information usage and report the historical development of major related topics. Finally, we propose several important future research directions.