What Drives Firms to Engage in Interorganizational Information Sharing in Supply Chain Management?

With growing use of interorganizational systems, the scope of interfirm collaboration has increased considerably, particularly in the supply chain context. An important prerequisite of interfirm collaboration is information sharing. Extant research suggests clear advantages of information sharing. The research at hand addresses antecedents of interorganizational information sharing. Based on findings from interorganizational systems adoption and interfirm collaboration research, a structural model is developed and validated by a quantitative survey among Austrian retailers and manufacturers in the fast-moving consumer-goods sector. The proposed model analyzes the effect of internal factors (commitment, information policy, and technical readiness), interorganizational factors (relationship, trust, power, and trading partners’ technical readiness), and economic factors (perceived benefits and costs) on information-sharing behavior. The results show the relevance of internal factors and perceived benefits. The study reveals particularities of information-sharing behavior and can help practitioners to understand what motivates their trading partners to share information.