Abstract:

More and more suppliers are facing uncertain disruptions， and they do not know if and when disruptions will occur. Underestimating or overestimating the supply reliability may lead to over- or under-sourcing. A signaling game model of supply reliability is constructed for the manufacturer sourcing problem with uncertain supply disruptions risk. Manufacturer can source from a single supplier who is initially uncertain， or supplement from a reliable supplier with high cost， forming dual-sourcing. It focuses on signal quality effects， uncertainty effects and optimal sourcing strategies under different information conditions in this paper. The findings suggest that manufacturer needs to pay information rents to high-reliability supplier to prevent it from imitating low-reliability supplier under supply disruptions information asymmetry. Improving signal quality or reducing uncertainty about disruptions is not necessarily beneficial to the manufacturer， who can reduce the negative effects of information asymmetry by adjusting its sourcing strategies. In addition， when the supplier cost differences are moderate， a larger market size can hedge against the risk of switching sourcing strategies due to poor information.

Key words: information asymmetry, uncertainty, disruptions risk, sourcing strategie