عوامل موثر بر شرکای تجاری در به اشتراک گذاری دانش: با استفاده از لنز هزینه اقتصادی معاملات و نظریه های اجتماعی- سیاسی

Knowledge sharing allows trading partners to orchestrate the operation of supply chain and capture positions of advantage. Yet, lack of knowledge sharing has been consistently found to be the most critical failure factor in supply chain management. This paper intends to study the factors affecting trading partners’ entering knowledge sharing ties. Drawing upon transaction cost economics and socio-political theories, we developed our research framework. The hypotheses derived were tested by data collected with six medium-sized companies. Data analysis showed that socio-political factors were more robust in affecting the focal firm’s decision on whether to share knowledge with a particular partner. In particular, trust towards the partner and the partner’s power were the primary factors leading the firm to enter the knowledge sharing ties. In contrast, asset specificity did not play an important role in affecting the firm’s knowledge sharing decision. Theoretical contribution and practical implications are discussed.

As a society moves from the industrial to the knowledge age, knowledge is brought to the forefront as a factor of production and identified as the asset fundamentally responsible for organizational success [24] and [34]. Sharing knowledge allows the participating organizations to integrate their knowledge, detect the window of opportunities in the marketplace and capture positions of advantage [20], [40], [58] and [64]. In particular, sharing knowledge between trading partners may enable the firms to orchestrate activities in the supply chain, such as concerted demand forecasts and replenishments. Nevertheless, the great potential benefits of knowledge sharing do not lead most firms, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to enter such cooperative relationships. Lack of knowledge sharing with trading partners has been consistently found to be the most critical failure factor in supply chain management [16]. Our interest in the phenomenon of insufficient knowledge sharing in supply chains motivated our research reported in this paper.