How Much Willingness to Share Inmormation Affects Social Exchange Factors in Supply Chains

Information sharing is crucial for supply chains to collaborate, improve their performance, and achieve competitive advantage. Some of this sharing is done automatically but normally it involves humans and their individual willingness to share information plays an important role. Currently, the application of sociological theories like social exchange theory (SET) is limited in the behavioral supply chain field. The purpose is to study the effect of willingness to share quality information by SET motivation factor like reciprocity in supply chains. A quantitative approach consisting of a cross-sectional survey of 387 respondents was used. An extensive moderation analysis in SPSS was carried out using Hayes Process tool to study the moderating role of willingness for reciprocity to share quality information. The techniques used were regression slopes analysis and John-Neyman approach to quantify moderation. The research showed when willingness is low, reciprocity plays a major role in information sharing quality, and when willingness is high, it strengthens the relationship of reciprocal relationship for information sharing quality. Our research thus brings a deeper insight into the human issues faced during information sharing in supply chains.