Empirical Research On Relationship Of Social Capital, Information Sharing And Operational Performance In Supply Chain

The current theory and practice has shown that information sharing is the foundation of supply chain management, the coordination run between enterprises of supply chain is based on high-quality information delivery and sharing. However, due to the prevalence of asymmetric information, bullwhip effect and other issues in upstream and downstream of supply chain, real-time transmission of information and the authenticity of information severely were affected, leading to the low overall efficiency of supply chain management. So information sharing among supply chain partners, become the focus of attention in domestic and foreign scholars. Considering the problems of information sharing and the lacking of theoretical research in the China’s current supply chain, this paper carried out empirical research on key factors of information sharing between supply chain partners. According to the particular context of China’s economic transition period, this paper established the theoretical model of information sharing among supply chain partners based on social capital theory. And finded the key factors of information sharing and further verified the value of information sharing through empirical research methods.Based on the research and analysis of existing literature, this study proposes a consceptual model and research hypptheses on social capital in supply chain, information sharing and operational performance. We propose and empirically test a model using valid data collected from manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong based on method of reliability and validity analysis, exploratory analysis, confirmatory analysis and structural equation modeling analysis. The results show that: (1) In the three dimensions of supply chain social capital between the manufacturers and suppliers and between the manufacturers and customers, structural dimension and cognitive dimension both have significant positive impacts on relationship dimension, and structural dimension also have significant positive impact on cognitive dimension. (2) Among the partners of Upstream and downstream in supply chain, both relationship dimension and cognitive dimensions have significant direct positive impacts on information sharing, While structure dimension of supply chain social capital has no significant direct positive impact on information sharing. But structure dimension can indirect effects information sharing through relationship dimension and cognitive dimensions. (3) Information sharing between manufactures and suppliers and between manufactures and customers both have significant direct positive impacts on operatioanl performance. In addition, Our study also used a combination of vertical and horizontal case study method to get the further verification and explanations of the conclusions obtained from empirical research.Under the context of economic transformation period, this study integrates concepts and knowledge from multi-disciplines, which provides cross disciplines and multi-angle insights for the hot issue of information sharing research in supply chain. This study makes major contributions as follows: (1) Analyzed the key impact factors of supply chain information sharing from the perspective of social capital theory, and gave the definition of supply chain social capital. This new perspective made up the existing literature research on impact factors of supply chain information sharing in Chinese domestic conddition and expanded the applications of social capital. (2) from The whole supply chain include both of upstream and downstream perspective, researched the mechanism between social capital and information sharing among supply chain partners in Chinese context, this can provide a theoretical guide for our enterprises to improve information sharing level. (3) Further verified the importace of information sharing on operational performance in China’s whole supply chain.