Abstract:
The aim of the paper is to use computer simulation models of an entire industry's distribution channel as instruments of theory development. The major phenomena to be explained center around recent developments in distribution systems, resulting from advancing technology in the logistics of distribution as well as in communications between the various levels of the channel. Dynamic instabilities and various adaptive response patterns are found to be explainable more immediately by the hierarchical nature of the feedback-control relationships prevailing between various levels of the distribution channel than by environmental changes reflected in demand patterns.