Information sharing across multiple supply chain tiers: A Delphi study on antecedents

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore antecedents associated with information sharing across multiple supply chain tiers. We conduct a Delphi study with 29 supply chain experts to collect qualitative and quantitative data, and identify a total of 22 factors that are grouped into six categories: information utilization, technology utilization, power structures, culture, business process, and legal. All 22 factors pose challenges to information sharing beyond the dyadic relationships, and certain factors such as trust are regarded as barriers, i.e. too difficult to resolve for implementing multi-tier information sharing. With respect to the many antecedents that are identified, the study highlights several difficulties for companies to achieve seamless information flows across multi-tier supply chains. These difficulties concern relational, behavioral, and structural issues in networks of multiple companies. For instance, there is a lack of an overarching purpose and process so that all partners work toward the same goal, and an increased number of relationships make it difficult to build strong relationships and to formalize contracts. The multiple links and exchanges also make it difficult to forecast, aggregate, and share accurate and timely information in a secure manner. This research study is one of the few that empirically explores information sharing across multi-tier supply chains and, as such, provides new insights to why the challenges may be difficult to resolve in a multi-tier setting.