انتخاب استراتژیک فن آوری های تولید انعطاف پذیر با استفاده از رویکرد تئوری بازی

This paper examines the conditions under which a firm would choose a flexible production technology or a dedicated technology in a duopoly environment. We model this technology choice by having two firms simultaneously select from two production technologies in the first stage and subsequently take in a Cournot production quantity subgame. Conditions under which technology equilibriums exist are given. We find that the premium a firm is willing to pay for flexibility increases as the market size increases and the product substitutability decreases. We also find that Prisoner's Dilemma does not necessarily occur in the production technology game, which is different from previous studies.

The environment faced by manufacturing firms is increasingly uncertain because of fast and dramatic changes in customer expectations, competition, and technology [1]. Many manufacturing firms have faced the decision of whether or not to invest into what is known as flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Examples of implementations of these new systems abound in the auto-mobile, machine tool, aerospace, heavy machinery, electronics and military equipment industries [2]. FMS brings a firm the ability to accommodate with various internal and external changes, thus promotes the performance and competitiveness of the firm. FMS also provides a firm the ability to produce multiple products simultaneously and enter multiple markets. However, FMS also makes firms compete more fiercely if they produce the same product type and sell them in the same market. In this paper we analyze firms' strategic choices of flexible production technology, and the factors that affect the choices.

In this paper, we consider the technology–quantity choice of two autonomous duopoly firms in two competitive markets. We model the technology–quantity choice as a two-stage sequential duopoly non-cooperative game of complete information. In the first stage, firms simultaneously choose from a flexible production technology (F) and a dedicated technology (D). The flexible technology enables the firm to simultaneously produce two products and thus enter two markets; whereas the dedicated technology limits the firm to producing only one product and thus entering one market. In the second stage a Cournot game in quantities is played conditioning on the first-stage choice of technologies. Compared with previous studies, this paper takes a look at the strategic choice of flexible production technology from a more general viewpoint. In this paper, the products can be substitutes or complements, and the investment costs of flexible technology are allowed to be firm-specific. These relaxed assumptions make the results different from previous studies.