Abstract Non-price attributes such as product quality, supplier’s reliability, and timely delivery can be more important than simply unit price for the buyers. Therefore, the form of supplier competition in which the buyer adjust the prices from the suppliers with the quality scores (QS) becomes more popular than that under price-only format, where the decision is made solely based on prices. That said, QS alters the competition between the suppliers in two ways. First, it changes the nature of price competition among the suppliers as the winner needs to offer the lowest QS-adjusted price (not necessarily the lowest price). Second, the specific value of QS for each supplier is only known to the buyer, which gives rise to the credibility issues from the buyer’s perspective. Analysing supply competition under QS, in this paper, we characterize the equilibrium prices and evaluate whether or not it is beneficial for the buyer to share QS information with the suppliers in a credible fashion. We identify two factors: (i) degree of homogeneity among the suppliers (as measured by relative QS between the suppliers) and (ii) degree of information asymmetry (as measured by the range of uncertainty for the relative QS). The buyer prefers not to share the relative QS with the suppliers if they are relatively similar to each other in terms of QS. This is because the suppliers engage in a more intensified price competition under information asymmetry compared to when they have access to exact value of the relative QS. However, the opposite holds true if the suppliers become more uncertain about their relative QS. Hence, in this case, the buyer finds sharing QS information with the suppliers beneficial for the sake of lowering equilibrium prices notwithstanding the cost of credible sharing.

中文翻译：

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质量得分下的供应竞争：动机、信息共享和可信度

摘要 对于买方而言，产品质量、供应商的可靠性和及时交货等非价格属性可能比简单的单价更重要。因此，与仅根据价格做出决定的纯价格格式相比，买方调整具有质量分数 (QS) 的供应商的价格的供应商竞争形式变得更加流行。也就是说，QS 以两种方式改变了供应商之间的竞争。首先，它改变了供应商之间价格竞争的性质，因为获胜者需要提供最低的 QS 调整价格（不一定是最低价格）。其次，每个供应商的 QS 具体值只有买方知道，这就产生了买方的可信度问题。分析QS下的供应竞争，在本文中，我们描述了均衡价格，并评估了买方以可信的方式与供应商共享 QS 信息是否有益。我们确定了两个因素：(i) 供应商之间的同质化程度（由供应商之间的相对 QS 衡量）和 (ii) 信息不对称程度（由相对 QS 的不确定性范围衡量）。如果供应商在 QS 方面相对相似，则买方更愿意不与供应商共享相对 QS。这是因为供应商在信息不对称的情况下参与的价格竞争比他们能够获得相对 QS 的确切值时更加激烈。但是，如果供应商对其相对 QS 变得更加不确定，则情况正好相反。因此，在这种情况下，