CONSTRUCT SUPPLY CHAIN TRUST MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: AN INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION INTO THE SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS

Abstract

Supply chain trust (SCT) is an important aspect in supply chain management (SCM).  Scholars study its construct and factors in order to manage it.  Here we try to construct the management system of SCT by integrating its sociological psychological evolution into the supply chain process.  We first get the construct of SCT from literature study, where we find its suspension part is corresponding to social capital, with the latter a sociological construct.  Then looking into its evolution progress based on demand and incentive theory, we find the SCT system is a control system with three subsystems trust history subsystem, trust behavior subsystem, and trust increment subsystem.  Each of the subsystems and their interaction is explored to find elements that are controllable.  The result of the exploration is a SCT management system including SCT and its nine factors: SCM objectives, trust values, dependence relationship, satisfaction, perceived devotion, supplier’s independence, communication, share, and producing collaboration.  The inner interaction mechanism of the system needs to be studied empirically, and a methodology for this is proposed at the end of the paper.