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The purpose of this paper is to explore how the choice of buying managers to share or limit the sharing of strategic information with their suppliers relates to the presence or absence of goodwill and competence trust in the buyer–supplier relationship.

An interpretive single case study of a mid-sized retailer was used. In total, 17 semi-structured interviews examining information sharing events were conducted with buying managers, along with the analysis of company documents.

Goodwill and competence trust have a positive effect on strategic information sharing, yet this study reveals several tactics used by buying managers in the presence of competence trust only. With a lack of established trust, or earlier trust breaches, little to no information sharing occurs.

This study featured cross-sectional data of a single case from the buyer’s perspective. This limits its generalizability, yet provides opportunities to test the findings through longitudinal studies, potentially gathering data from both buyers and suppliers.

Relating which types of information being shared for different forms of trust guides managers’ expectations on which type of trust they wish to build for each of their buyer–supplier relationships.

This study examines the trust and information sharing relationship in more detail, linking different types of trust to categories of strategic information. It also distinguishes between the different concepts of encouraging information sharing and deliberately limiting strategic information sharing.

With asymmetric investments in exchange (i.e. sourcing) relationships, both sourcing firms and suppliers invest but one party invests more than the other. This paper aims to examine the associations between asymmetric (i.e. unequal) investments in exchange relationships and the tendency of the strategic supplier base to shirk as perceived by the sourcing firm, as well as the moderation effects of cross-functional information sharing within a sourcing firm on these associations.

The authors analyzed survey data from 500 US middle-market manufacturers via ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation. Besides appropriate controls, the authors also employed the heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable approach to ensure that analytical inferences are not influenced by endogeneity.

On average, when a sourcing firm invests more than its strategic supplier base into their exchange relationships, the perceived tendency of the strategic supplier base to shirk decreases. This negative association is more pronounced when a sourcing firm facilitates cross-functional information sharing. Conversely, when the strategic supplier base invests more than the sourcing firm into their exchange relationships, the perceived tendency of the strategic supply base to shirk is not detected unless the sourcing firm facilitates cross-functional information sharing.

Prior research reveals that investments by a sourcing firm or by suppliers influence supplier shirking. This paper provides new evidence as to how and why asymmetric investments in exchange relationships relate to the perceived tendency of the strategic supplier base to shirk and new evidence as to how and why cross-functional information sharing safeguards against this tendency when investments in exchange relationships are unequal.

This paper seeks to report the results of a study examining the effects of manufacturer-distributor relationships' governance structures (market governance, third-party enforcement of agreements and self-enforcing governance modes) on the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer.

To test the hypotheses, survey data were gathered from 224 wholesalers from the food and beverage industry in Spain. Manufacturer-distributor collaboration refers to the possibility of sharing strategic information and encouraging creativity. Regression analyses illustrate the differences in the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer under different governance scenarios.

The study illustrates that the greater the skill of the manufacturers and distributors in developing self-enforcing governance modes (e.g. bilateral formal safeguards and bilateral informal safeguards) that complement third-party enforcement of agreements (e.g. legal contracts), the greater the willingness of both to share strategic information and creativity will be. Furthermore, this investigation delineates the moderating effect of opportunism on the relationship between governance and the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer. Finally, the results show that the distributor's willingness to share strategic information has an inverted-U relationship with creativity and innovation development in manufacturer-distributor relationships.

The study's findings allow firms to concentrate their efforts on the most relevant governance structures that minimize transaction costs and provide incentives to develop collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships and create value for the customer.

The research acknowledges the multidimensional nature of collaboration and goes deeper into the need to share strategic information (external and internal strategic information) and the factors that compose the generation of creative ideas in the manufacturer-distributor relationship (knowledge-sharing routines, learning orientation, open-mindedness and management support). Additionally, although research on collaborative distribution channel practices has advanced over the past decades, the importance of governance structures to the development of collaborative practices has not been firmly established. The paper addresses this void in the literature by reporting the results of an empirical study examining manufacturer-distributor collaborations within the food and beverage industry in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether truthful information sharing can be achieved via informal cheap talk in a competitive setting, and how carbon emission constraint and information-sharing modes (no information sharing, partial information sharing and public information sharing) interact with each other under cap-and-trade regulation.

This paper establishes an emission-dependent supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, an incumbent retailer who has superior demand information and a new entrant retailer. The manufacturer abates carbon emissions under the pressures of government environmental regulation and consumers’ eco-friendly concern. The research formulates a multistage game to explore every party’s decision and the implications of information-sharing modes.

The results show that truthful information sharing can be achieved when the manufacturer decides both the wholesale price and carbon emission abatement. The results also show that the incumbent retailer’s information-sharing decision highly depends on the manufacturer’s capacity in abating carbon emissions and the demand uncertainty.

The research adds value to information management and sustainable production literature. This work emphasizes the interaction between the information flow and material flow. Not only it investigates the factors that affect information-sharing modes from a new point of view when considering carbon emission constraint, but also provides operational strategies for manufacturers to make more profit when facing asymmetric information and emission regulation.

This study aims to analyze the effects of information sharing on customer relationship intention (CRI) based on the characteristics of different trading relationships.

This research was conducted in two phases to explore the effects of information sharing on relationship intention of different customer segments. The objective of phase one was to segment different customer groups according to two criteria: customer relationship value and customer responsiveness. The objective of phase two was to analyze the impact of information sharing on these segmented customer groups.

Data from 239 customers of a large steel supplier indicate that information sharing positively influences CRI and that the characteristics of the trading relationship moderate the effects of information sharing. These findings suggest that, while information sharing is an important means of enhancing a customer relationship, not all types of customer should be treated the same way.

Assessment of customer intention depends on the structure of the buyer‐supplier network. Other extraneous variables such as branding, industrial position and bargaining power may influence customer attitudes towards information sharing‐induced changes.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the effects of different levels of information sharing on different customer clusters differentiated by trading relationship characteristics.

This paper aims to investigate the antecedents of supply chain information integration (SCII) and their consequences on company performance from the perspective of resource-based view (RBV).

Based on empirical survey data collected from 202 Australian manufacturers, this study examines the effects of strategic supply chain relationship (SCR) and supply chain technology (SCT) internalization on external and internal information integration (II) and the effects of external and internal II on operational (operational efficiency and service quality) and financial performance. Structural equation modeling and the maximum-likelihood estimation methods are used to test the proposed relationships.

The results indicate that both strategic SCR and SCT internalization are positively related to external and internal II. Moreover, strategic SCR has a stronger positive relationship with external II than with internal II, and SCT internalization has a stronger positive relationship with internal II than with external II. Internal II is positively related only to service quality, and external II is positively related only to operational efficiency. Both operational efficiency and service quality are positively related to financial performance.

This study contributes to the SCII literature and provides significant managerial implications for manufacturers to leverage their supply chain resources and capabilities by establishing a resources-capabilities-performance framework for the antecedents and consequences of SCII.

This paper seeks to identify collaboration elements and evaluate their intensity in the Brazilian supermarket retail chain, especially the manufacturer‐retailer channel.

A structured questionnaire was elaborated and applied to 125 representatives from suppliers of large supermarket chains. Statistical methods including multivariate analysis were employed. Variables were grouped and composed into five indicators (joint actions, information sharing, interpersonal integration, gains and cost sharing, and strategic integration) to assess the degree of collaboration.

The analyses showed that the interviewees considered interpersonal integration to be of greater importance to collaboration intensity than the other integration factors, such as gain or cost sharing or even strategic integration.

The research was conducted solely from the point of view of the industries that supply the large retail networks. The interviews were not conducted in pairs; that is, there was no application of one questionnaire to the retail network and another to the partner industry.

Companies should invest in conducting periodic meetings with their partners to increase collaboration intensity, and should carry out technical visits to learn about their partners' logistic reality and thus make better operational decisions.

The paper reveals which indicators produce greater collaboration intensity, and thus those that are more relevant to more efficient logistics management.

This paper aims to examine the effect of inventory information sharing on inventory efficiency and its intervening effect of information technology (IT) capability in manufacturing firms.

Stratified random sampling and filter questions selected targeted respondents, and an online survey collected 124 completed questionnaires from Malaysian manufacturing firms. partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) examined the structural model and hypothesis statement. An analysis of importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) test identified the relative importance drivers of inventory efficiency.

The findings showed that enhanced IT capabilities in manufacturing firms mediate a positive relationship between inventory sharing and inventory efficiency.

This study portrays the relationship between inventory level, demand and information sharing. The research was carried out only within Malaysian manufacturing firms.

These findings will enable the management of manufacturing firms to design and visualise their inventory levels and share best practices across supply chain networks to achieve effective and optimised inventory planning.

This study illustrates an intervention model that offers a direct and indirect impact of IT capabilities that allow scholars to close inventories productivity gaps in research.

This paper extends the limited literature on the sharing of inventory information and inventory productivity, notably from a strategic management perspective. The findings help scholars clearly understand the information systems capability and its mediating impact on information sharing and inventory efficiency’s relationship in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, demand information sharing affected the dynamic supply chain.

The purpose of this paper was to empirically examine the effects of relationship quality between exporter and importer on export performance in Turkish firms, and further, how small and medium‐sized exporting firms are segmented based on quality of their relationship with importers.

The paper includes Structural Equation Modeling and Cluster Analysis.

The findings demonstrate that there is the positive impact of: information sharing on financial export performance and satisfaction with the export venture; long‐term orientation on financial export performance, strategic export performance and satisfaction with the export venture; and satisfaction with the relationship on financial performance, strategic performance and satisfaction with export venture. Three segments of firm are profiled such as “long‐term thinkers”, “dissatisfactioners” and “information keepers”.

The data incorporate only the view of one player (the exporter) around the exporter‐importer relationship and do not take into account views from the other side of the dyad. However, since this study focused on first, the measuring relationship quality from the exporter's perspective and, second, the formation of exporter relationships as perceived by the exporter, ideal participants to be examined in this study are exporters. Future researches should be encouraged to test similar hypotheses in other international settings and compare their findings.

Information exchange between exporter and importer fosters the export performance of small and medium sized firms. If exporters openly enter into contact with importers and share confidential information and strategic issues, satisfaction with export venture will be increased. The long run relationships will probably involve cooperation, goal sharing and risk sharing. Export managers should work by cooperative manner, avoid the short‐term alternatives instead of long‐term benefits and not act opportunistically. Relational satisfaction impacts to the financial and strategic export performances, and satisfaction with the export venture. When an exporter meets the expectations of importer based on evaluations of the tangible product or non‐product related attributes such as delivery, service, or relational investments, his/her export performance will improve.

This study can increase exporting firms' awareness and understanding about relationship quality in handling international operations. Additionally, this study differs from similar studies, which are related to relationships quality, by suggesting a classification of firms based on relational quality dimensions. Therefore, it provides more specific knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the information shared by SMEs with their main customers and suppliers and its implications on their performance.

The paper puts forward the concept of arcs of communication based on the frequency and direction of the information exchanged by SMEs with their main customers and suppliers. SMEs are classified by the arc of communication they belong to using data from a survey carried out in the Canary Islands (Spain). The Rasch Measurement Theory is applied.

The largest group of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) shares information frequently with both customers and suppliers (broad arc of communication). Differences were detected in the performance of SMEs belonging to this broad arc, as well as, in those firms that communicated frequently with their main suppliers (asymmetrical arc of communication towards suppliers). In both cases, these firms were better than their competitors in innovation.

This study demonstrates the need for better management of the links between SMEs and their suppliers and with their customers in accordance with their strategies, promoting a greater cooperative behaviour throughout the supply chain.

SMEs’ customers and suppliers are their main sources of information compared to large firms, which have greater resources to search for and acquire information. This paper investigates the information exchanged by SMEs with their main customers and suppliers from a strategic focus by adding to the literature the concept of arcs of communication. It also has the added value of applying the Rasch Measurement Theory (Rasch, 1960/1980).