Achieving mass customization through trust-driven information sharing: a supplier's perspective

Purpose - Trust is essential for business relationships within a supply chain, and information sharing provides a key means to improve the efficiency of a supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to test empirically the relationship between trust and manufacturer-supplier information sharing to determine its (positive) effect on mass customization. Design/methodology/approach - The data come from 208 firms in North America and China. Structural equation modeling supports the data analysis. Findings - The results suggest that high mutual trust can lead to free information sharing between suppliers and manufacturers, which in turn leads to improved mass customization capabilities. In addition, cultural differences have significant moderating effects on the relationship between trust and information sharing. Originality/value - The study described in this paper measures mutual trust between manufacturers and suppliers and regards information sharing as the free flow of information, both to and from the manufacturer and supplier.