Factors Affecting the Level of Trust and Commitment in Supply Chain Relationships
AUTHORS

Ik-Whan G. Kwon is professor and director in the Consortium for Supply Chain Management Studies in the John Cook School of Business at Saint Louis University in St. Louis. Taewon Suh is assistant professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at Texas State University–San Marcos in San Marcos, Texas.
Trust is a critical factor fostering commitment among supply chain partners. The presence of trust improves measurably the chance of successful supply chain performance. A lack of trust among supply chain partners often results in inefficient and ineffective performance as the transaction costs (verification, inspections and certifications of their trading partners) mount. Although the literature often mentions a relationship between trust and commitment, there is a lack of empirical testing of such relationship in the supply context. This study

INTRODUCTION
Successful supply chain performance is based on a high level of trust and a strong commitment among supply chain partners. Effective supply chain planning based on shared information and trust among partners is an essential requirement for successful supply chain management. One study reported that one-third of strategic alliances failed due to a lack of trust among trading partners (Sherman 1992). Information sharing sometimes requires a release of guarded financial, strategic and other operating information to partners who might have been and/or will be competitors, since “effective information sharing is heavily dependent on trust beginning within the firm and ultimately extending to supply chain partners” (Bowersox et al. 2000). It has been argued that “issues of trust and risk can be significantly more important in supply chain relationships, because supply chain relationships often involve a higher degree of interdependency between competitors” (La Londe 2002). If information is available but