sajm






The Impact of Pricing Alignment on Bullwhip Effect in Agri-Food Supply Chains: A Study of Indian Supply Chains

Pramod K Mishra*, Manish Mohan Baral** and Venkataiah Chittipaka***

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62206/sajm.32.2.2025.192-212

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to assess how the pricing alignment can control the bullwhip effect in the supply chain. In the extant literature, information and coordination are some of the widely discussed issues in the bullwhip effect. In this study, the price data have been warped with the help of a novel Machine Learning (ML) technique called “Dynamic Time Warping (DTW)”. The warped data have been analyzed rigorously to verify if there is any possibility of controlling the bullwhip effects in the supply chain through warping. Eleven supply chains’ time series data, borrowed from the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI, GoI), are taken into consideration. The findings of the study state that in the presence of bidirectional causal behavior, the prices get better aligned with each other and hence the compatibility among them increases. The increased compatibility further can reduce the bullwhip effects. Though the causality was found to be bidirectional in most of the commodities, in some of the supply chains, the causality was found to be unidirectional (backward/forward). Irrespective of whether the causality is unidirectional or bidirectional, it was found that the warping data were more suitable in pricing alignment which in turn was capable of controlling the bullwhip effects to greater extents.

Key Words

Agri-Food Supply Chain (AFSC), Bullwhip effect, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), Pricing alignment

Author Biography

Pramod K Mishra*
Assistant Professor (Operations Management & Decision Sciences), School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Manish Mohan Baral**
Assistant Professor (Operations Management), GITAM School of Business, GITAM (Deemed to be University), Visakhapatnam, India. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Venkataiah Chittipaka***
Associate Professor (Operations Management), School of Management Studies (SOMS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, India. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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