Research On The Mechanism Of Individual Guanxi On Information Sharing Among Supply Chain Partners

The current theory and practice has shown that the coordination between enterprises insupply chain is based on high-quality information delivery and sharing. But due to theprevalence of asymmetric information, bullwhip effect and other issues, real-timetransmission and authenticity of information were severely affected, leading to the lowefficiency of overall supply chain management. So sharing information among partnersbecomes the focus in domestic and foreign scholars. Considering the existing problems ofinformation sharing and the lacking of theoretical research in China, this paper try to carry outempirical research on key factors of information sharing in supply chain partners. Accordingto the particular context of China’s guanxi culture, this paper try to establish the theoreticalmodel of individual guanxi, trust and information sharing among supply chain partners, tofind the key factors of information sharing.Based on the research and analysis of existing literature, this study proposes aconsceptual model on individual guanxi, trust, information sharing and operationalperformance. We empirically test the model using valid data collected from273manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong based on method of some data analysis.The results show that:(1) Guanxi between manufactor and supplier have significant positiveimpact on information sharing content, while have no significant positive impact oninformation IT and information quality. Guanxi between manufactor and customer havesignificant positive impact on information sharing quality, while have no significant positiveimpact on information content and information IT.(2) No matter in upstream or indownstream cases, Guanxi would have significant direct positive impact on trust, and trustalso have significant direct positive impact on the three dimension of information.(3) Nomatter in upstream or in downstream cases, both information sharing content and informationsharing quality have significant direct positive impacts on operatioanl performance, whileinformation shanring IT have no significant direct positive impact on operatioanl performance.(4) High-tech enterprises in manufacturing pay more attention in advancing informationsharing technology through guanxi than tradition enterprises, while tradition enterprises pay more attention in advancing information sharing content through guanxi.This study makes major contributions as follows: Find the key impact factors of thesupply chain information sharing, make up the lack of information sharing study on factors;From the overall perspective of the supply chain, explore the mechanism of executivespersonal guanxi on information sharing in the Chinese context; Further analyse theimportance of internal dimensions of information sharing on the operational performancebetween the upstream and downstream in supply chain.