Game theory approach to supplier assessment according to competitive priorities

People make many decisions that will shape their lives positively or negatively throughout their lives. Decision making is the next step to action after thinking and generating ideas and step before taking action. In the decision-making process, people tend to choose the best situation. Hence, decision making is choosing one of the available options. In terms of businesses, it is seen that decision making is vital for the achievement of the goals of the enterprises. The ability of businesses to achieve their dreams in the future and reach their goals depends on their decisions. Within the changing environmental factors, businesses will never have complete and flawless information about the problems they face. In businesses, they have to solve the problems they encounter in these difficulties by using the limited knowledge they have and making rational decisions. Nowadays, it is seen that the companies that managed to survive, where competition is intense, are effectively planning, running and managing their supply chains. The most important factor that leads to the emergence of the supply chain and affects the performance of the supply chain are the use of resources. In addition, supplier selection is the most important of resource use decisions. AHP, ANP, ELECTRE, Data Envelopment Analysis, TOPSIS, VIKOR, Fuzzy Sets Theory, DAMATEL and PROMETHEE methods are the most widely used multi-criteria decision making techniques in supplier selection problems. As an alternative to these methods used in the literature, the application of game theory shows the originality of the study. In addition, one-to-one interviews with players on the field helped to move the real environment to the fictional structure of the game theory. The aim of the study is to evaluate suppliers with the game theory approach and to assess on supply chain performance. A Global Supply Chain member buyer company and 8 suppliers of the buyer company were included in the study. The buyer-supplier game was played between the buyer and 8 suppliers. Supply chain performances were evaluated and explained in detail according to the results obtained from buyer-supplier games. Then, the results obtained with the game theory approach and the AHP were compared. The advantages and disadvantages of the game theory approach are discussed. Keywords: Competitive Priorities, Supplier Selection, Game Theory