The Effects of Interpersonal Trust on Inter-firm Trust in Supply Chain

摘要

As the quickly development of technology and global economics, supply chains is one arena of competition of modern firms. The cooperation among firms is becoming an important source of acquiring competitive advantages. So trust plays a more and more important role and is the critical factor among supply chain partners. Interfirm trust can reduce transaction costs, improve effective communications and customer's satisfactions and facilitate dispute resolution and so on. In this paper, we will discuss how to built interfirm trust among supply chain partners.Firstly, we will discuss how can build interpersonal trust and which factors can effect the building of interpersonal trust. In this paper, we main consider two sides that lead to interpersonal trust. One is the attribute of trustee including competence, benevolence and integrity. The other is the attribute of trustor, which is trustor's experience. Secondly, we will analyze how interpersonal trust can transfer interfirm trust among the supply chain partners and consider several factors that are affecting the process of transfer. Lastly, three models are presented. At the same time, we will introduce several research hypotheses based on these models. Furthermore, we conclude the implications of this research and discuss the limitations of the study and future research.