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1. Introduction
The evolving nature of industry competition, from inter-organizational to inter-supply chain (Christopher, 1992), calls for high levels of cooperation and information between supply chain actors. Advocates of sharing stress the increased profit that will accrue from reduced uncertainty and improved efficiency and effectiveness (Tan et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2014). They also claim that increased supply chain responsiveness to volatile customer demands (Lau et al., 2002; Roh et al., 2014) will enhance customer value and competitive advantage over the long term (Klein and Rai, 2009). The contrary view is that managers will always be sceptical about sharing information with trading partners due to the perceived complexities, risks, and costs (Kembro and Näslund, 2014). Thus, willingness to exchange information becomes a “trade-off between efficiency and the responsiveness of the information resources”, particularly when sophisticated information systems are used (Du et al., 2012, p. 89).
Willingness to share commercially sensitive information with trading partners is crucial if end-customers are to be completely satisfied and the total costs to the supply chain minimized (Ellinger et al., 2012; Yu et al., 2013). However, the risks associated with information sharing across supply chains are still not well-defined and await rigorous investigation (Baker et al., 2007; Du et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2014). Thus, academics and supply chain managers have an interest in gaining a deeper understanding of the critical success factors for sharing information across supply chain interfaces (Kembro and Näslund, 2014).
We posit that the inherent complexities of the supply chain information sharing process call for a holistic theoretical framework that goes beyond the more usual formal assessments of risk. We also contend that when supply chain managers reflect on their information sharing experiences with upstream and downstream trading partners, a social realization of one’s position within the supply chain/network results. Hence, an understanding of managers’ perceptions of the risks and benefits associated with information sharing is key to gaining deeper insights into the information- sharing process. Thus, the overarching goal of this research is to investigate manager perceptions of the challenges and security risks involved when exchanging information with other supply chain actors, and the nature of risk mitigation strategies.
The exploratory character of...