Problem definition: Guided delegation, a practice in which companies provide guidelines when delegating supplier management to tier 1 firms, is a common practice in managing complex supply chains. We study the benefits and risks of this approach in a three-tier supply chain setting consisting of a buying firm, a tier 1 contract manufacturer, and tier 2 suppliers, where responsibility risk stems from the tier 2 suppliers. We analyze the buyer’s profit and the supply chain’s responsibility risk under a guided-delegation model, in which the buyer specifies an authorized tier 2 supplier for the tier 1 manufacturer as a guideline and may audit the tier 1 firm for compliance. We compare this model with a full-delegation model, in which the buyer fully delegates tier 2 supplier selection to the tier 1 firm. Methodology/results: We formulate a Stackelberg game for the buyer’s contract design problem. We show that guided delegation does not always yield its expected results of lower supply chain risk and greater buyer profit. In instances where compliance auditing is financially more attractive to the buyer than paying a premium for tier 1’s responsible sourcing, guided delegation can result in higher profit but increased risk because compliance auditing cannot completely eliminate the risk. Additionally, when tier 1 anticipates buyer audits and demands higher wholesale prices to offset potential penalties, guided delegation may lead to decreased risk but lower profit for the buyer. Our analysis shows that delegating audit responsibilities to tier 1 often does not improve the buyer’s profit, and in situations where it does, it invariably raises the supply chain risk. Managerial implications: Our research identifies the potential downsides of guided delegation, offering insight for external stakeholders on where to focus efforts to avoid these pitfalls. It suggests that the intended benefits of guided delegation can only be realized when paired with compliance auditing.Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2020.0446 .

中文翻译：

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引导授权和信息接近度对多层负责任采购的影响

问题定义：引导授权是公司在将供应商管理授权给一级公司时提供指导的做法，是管理复杂供应链的常见做法。我们在由采购公司、一级合同制造商和二级供应商组成的三级供应链环境中研究了这种方法的好处和风险，其中责任风险来自二级供应商。我们在引导授权模型下分析买方的利润和供应链的责任风险，其中买方为一级制造商指定一家授权的二级供应商作为指导，并可能审核一级公司的合规性。我们将此模型与完全委托模型进行比较，在完全委托模型中，买方将二级供应商的选择完全委托给一级公司。方法/结果：我们针对买方的合同设计问题制定了Stackelberg博弈。我们表明，有指导的授权并不总是能产生降低供应链风险和增加买方利润的预期结果。如果合规审计在经济上比为一级负责任采购支付溢价对买方更具吸引力，则指导性授权可能会带来更高的利润，但也会增加风险，因为合规审计无法完全消除风险。此外，当第一级预计买家进行审核并要求更高的批发价格以抵消潜在的处罚时，引导授权可能会降低买家的风险，但利润也会降低。我们的分析表明，将审计责任委托给第一层通常不会提高买方的利润，而且在确实提高的情况下，它必然会增加供应链风险。管理影响：我们的研究确定了指导授权的潜在缺点，为外部利益相关者提供了有关应重点努力避免这些陷阱的见解。它表明引导授权的预期好处只有与合规审计相结合才能实现。补充材料：在线附录可在 https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2020.0446 上获取。