This poses further questions about the appropriate assessment of a specific operational or behavioral contingency.
Five main causes of the bullwhip effect have been identified: 1) the misinterpreting of demand information (forecasting), 2)supply shortages, 3) nonzero lead times, 4) batch ordering, and 5) price variations e.g. price promotions (Lee et al. 1997a and 1997b; Warburton, 2004). While these causes expect rational decisions of all supply chain members (operational causes), irrationality or opportunistic behaviour (behavioural causes) is another source of the bullwhip effect (Croson andDonohue 2006). As a result of those causes, demand and stock variation propagates upstream with amplification occurring at each echelon of the supply chain. Carlsson and Fuller (2000) summarized the effects of the bullwhip effect following Lee et al. (1997a and 1997b)