Ethical judgments in supply chain management: a scenario analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze managers’ ethical judgments in supply chain management. It investigated the influence of those judgments on trust and collaboration in relationships with suppliers. Design/methodology/approach – A scenario-based method was applied to measure managers’ ethical judgments using a sample of 341 data sets collected via survey. Structural equation modeling was utilized to test the proposed hypotheses associating ethical judgments with trust and collaboration in supply chains. Findings – This study illustrates that managers’ ethical judgments in bidding/contracting, information management and inventory management significantly increase trust, which in turn increases supply chain collaboration. Originality/value – The study extends our understanding of ethical judgments in the supply chain management context. Its findings on the causality among ethical judgment, trust and supply chain collaboration provide an effective approach to the management of supplier relationships.