A buyer engages a procurement service provider (PSP) to short-list pre-screened suppliers for final selection. The PSP can exert costly effort to include promising candidates that have a higher probability to be deemed qualified by the buyer. The buyer optimizes two key decision variables in her...

To stay abreast of current supply-market pricing, it is common for procurement managers to frequently organize auctions among a pool of qualified suppliers (the supply base). Sole awards can alienate losing suppliers and cause them to defect from the supply base. To maintain the supply base and...