Supply chains today routinely use third parties for many strategic activities, such as manufacturing, R&D, or software development. These activities often include relationship-specific investment on the part of the vendor, while final outcomes can be uncertain. Therefore, writing complete...

We consider an e-tailer's upstream supplier who wants to encroach into retailing to earn additional revenue. The supplier needs to decide whether or not to enter the retail market by either selling to consumers on an e-tailer's platform by paying commission fees (agency encroachment) or opening...