Study on Opportunism- Curbing -Based Decision Making of Supplier Numbers

A decision making model regarding optimal number of suppliers was established according to the principle of effectively curbing the negative effects of opportunistic behavior as well as taking full advantage of cooperation, and the solutions was solved accordingly. Studies showed that the optimal supplier numbers is the decreasing function of cooperation benefits and transaction costs and the increasing function of opportunistic losses. If the saving of supplier's marginal production costs is greater than opportunistic losses, the buyer should select fewer suppliers, and more suppliers otherwise, and the greater the transaction costs are, the fewer suppliers the buyer should select. Single-supplier strategy policy is suitable only in special situations where cooperation benefits is great enough and/or where transaction costs is too much great.