Mahiro Tajima, a second-year master’s student, presented his research at the IPSERA Conference, an international conference in the field of purchasing and supply management, held in Helsinki, Finland, from April 19 to 22, 2026.

This study focuses on the fact that, while Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) improves overall efficiency and coordination, the costs associated with information sharing, an essential prerequisite for SCV, are not evenly distributed across firms. Specifically, the supply chain is modeled as a directed network, and the analysis assumes that disclosure-related losses propagate upstream with distance decay. Based on this framework, Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to quantitatively evaluate the relationship between firms’ network positions and their expected losses as well as risk exposure, particularly tail risk.

The results show that firms with higher PageRank tend to bear greater routine information disclosure costs, while firms with higher betweenness centrality are more exposed to extreme loss risks. These findings suggest that the design of information-sharing mechanisms in supply chains should incorporate compensation schemes and governance structures that reflect firms’ structural positions within the network.

Title: Who loses from supply chain visibility?

Authors: Mahiro Tajima, Yukihisa Fujita, Kota Nakamura, Masahiro Kuwahara, Teruaki Hayashi