Understanding trust in supply chain relationships

Abstract

The popularity of supply chain partnerships has exploded over the past few years with an increasing interest in the role of trust in facilitating the relationship. There has been a noticeable increase in the last quarter of the twentieth century of the importance of trust in partnerships and alliances in management literature. This paper deals with the nature and crucial role played by trust in long‐term relationships and tries to integrate a number of different perspectives to develop a framework along with three issues: ways the term “trust” is used, factors leading to trusting behaviour in the customer‐supplier relationship, and the effect of trust on the behaviour of a customer and a supplier. The paper presents some insights for supply chain managers from which they can examine their own partner relationships and provides supply chain managers with an in‐depth analysis of how to manage their supply chain relationships.

A study of inter-firm dynamics between competition and cooperation – A coopetition strategy

“…These collaborative arrangements engaged in by the food vendors in the Food Court, Fujitsu Services and AWPK are in line with the defi nitions of collaboration in extant literature. 33,34,51,58 The inter-fi rm collaboration, with respect to this study, is motivated by factors such as: increasing actors ' market share, asset utilization, enhancing customer service, increasing quality of product, enhancing skill and knowledge (resources) acquisition, and achieving economies of scale in production; sharing and reducing the cost of product development -as in the case of Fujitsu Services and AWPK -as well as product development time; decreasing risk of product development failure; achieving technological gain; and gaining access to markets. All of these factors are in line with those frequently mentioned in previous studies.…”

Analysing trust as a means of improving the effectiveness of the virtual supply chain

“…The commitment to building trust by supply chain partners is claimed to be a significant determinant in achieving successful supply chain partnerships (Heffernan, 2004;Kwon and Suh, 2005;Poirier, 1999;Sahay, 2003;Selnes, 1998;Wilson, 1995;Zineldin and Jonsson, 2000). Additionally, lack of trust in a supply chain is claimed by Poirier (1999) as "the single biggest obstacle to advancing supply chain improvement".…”

“…Trust relates to the willingness of two or more partners to take the risk of relying on the exchange of another partner in whom they have confidence (Batt, 2003;Kwon and Suh, 2005;Mayer et al, 1995;Moorman et al, 1993;Sahay, 2003;Selnes, 1998;Wilson, 1995;Wu et al, 2004;Zineldin and Jonsson, 2000). Trust in supply chain partnerships requires each partner to have a belief in the other partner not to take advantage of them (Batt, 2001a-b;Heffernan, 2004;Kwon and Suh, 2005;Lane and Bachmann, 2000;Zineldin and Jonsson, 2000).…”

“…Confidentiality has been proposed as an important factor in building trust between supply chain partners along with the sharing of secrets (Batt, 2001a-b;Moorman et al, 1993;Sahay, 2003;Wong and Sohal, 2002).…”

“…Supply chain partnerships are built on the trust that their partners pursue shared values or compatible goals (Batt, 2003;Coulter and Coulter, 2002;Dapiran and Hogarth-Scott, 2003;Sahay, 2003;Wilson, 1995;Wong and Sohal, 2002;Zineldin and Jonsson, 2000).…”