Track: Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Abstract

Cost optimization is a widely discussed topic in the supply chain literature, where effective supply chain contracts are identified as essential tools that can address the strategic issues such as ineffective costs, integration, information sharing and coordination. Knowing how supply chain costs are measured is vital for all supply chain members, where different accounting methods used to derive cost information. Therefore, accenting methods have implications on supply chain cost information, thereby affecting supply chain contracts formed among various supply chain partners. However, the studies that explored the relationship of cost measurement based on accounting methods with supply chain contracts are scant in literature. Therefore, we propose propositions considering Historical cost accounting, Fair value accounting and Creative accounting in a contractual framework of an e-tailer supply chain, operating in an asymmetric informational scenario.  The findings indicate that both historical and fair value-cost accounting methods affect supply chain contract outcomes when market conditions change. Furthermore, creative accounting directly impacts supply chain contracts if incentive-compatible constraints are not defined as it creates room for manipulating cost information.