A Two Phases Reputation－Based Model for Selecting Trusted Partners

Abstract

Partner selection is a key issue in supply chain management, owing to its role as the critical starting point in supply chains. However, trust is crucial among supply chain participants, and lack of trust is a significant barrier to establishing collaborative partnership. This study presented a method for selecting trusted collaborative partners which comprised two phases: (1) discovery phase, during which a requestor (i.e. namely a trustor) discovered the partner candidates (i.e. namely trustees) that were willing and claimed to be capable of collaborating, and (2) selection phase, during which the trustor selected the most reputable trustees using referral and reputation systems. This study adopts referral networks to identify the objective and subjective testimonies of partner candidates from third parties (i.e. namely raters) who had previously collaborated with the trustees, and this information was then aggregated to yield a trust score. The trustee with highest score was selected as a collaborative partner. We hope the proposed model can effectively help enterprises select collaborative partners with good competence, goodwill and predictability.

The Usage of Social Media and E-Reputation System in Global Supply Chain: Comparative Cases from Diamond & Automotive Industries

“…Although this interaction has substantial profits for the company, it involves risk [62]. In addition to the above mentioned selection provider's factors, trust plays a pivotal role among supply chain participants [16].…”

“…Lack of trust can be considered as one of the significant barriers to establishing collaborative partnerships [16]. Trust is affected significantly by partner reputation [63].…”

“…This paper tends to answer the question of "How do companies use e-reputation systems and social media networks to select their global trusted suppliers?" In order to address this question, the Reputation-Based model by [16] has been employed. The rationale for choosing this framework can be summarised as follows; Firstly, supplier selection is divided into two phases: supplier discovery phase and supplier selection phase.…”

Decision making and partner selection based on trust in multi-context environment

“…And finally the trust interval is then evaluated using following formula: (7) Trust between two agents defines the range in which the result of service execution, produced by related agent, is expected. The width of the interval correspond to the spread of agent behavior (the wider interval, the bigger changes in behavior).…”

“…A primary source of information for trust evaluation and decision making are direct experiences with partner, reputation or ratings based on referrals from other members (a referral is typically given only if the referring agent has sufficient confidence in the relevance of the agent being referred [6]) who are referred in a community. Competence, predictability, goodwill [7], social relations, prejudice [2], utility, importance, risk and specific situation [8] are other factors that are sometimes considered for the partner selec tion and the decision making process.…”