Title: One way or another: the relationship between trust and transparency in buyer-supplier relationships

Authors: Wolfgang Buchholz; Felix Jeschke; Antonia Kappel

Addresses: Institute of Process Management and Digital Transformation, Münster University of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 3020, 48016 Münster, Germany ' Röhlig Australia Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 154, 6160 – Perth, Australia ' Institute of Process Management and Digital Transformation, Münster University of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 3020, 48016 Münster, Germany

Abstract: Based on a variety of environmental, technological, and product-orientated changes, there has been a shift towards increased global collaboration between buyers and suppliers. This paper examines the mutual influence of trust and transparency at different developmental stages of these collaborative relations. In particular, it investigates a correlation of trust and transparency. An extensive literature review is here combined with an exploratory-qualitative World Café method to analyse the correlation of trust and transparency in buyer-supplier relationships. We found that the direction of influence between trust and transparency changes in the phases of exploration, expansion and commitment in a buyer-supplier relationship. In contrast to the literature, empirical analysis found that, in the exploration phase, transparency is a precondition for the emergence of trust.

Keywords: trust; transparency; buyer-supplier relation; knowledge-sharing; World café.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPM.2023.131178

International Journal of Procurement Management, 2023 Vol.17 No.3, pp.402 - 420

Received: 30 Aug 2021
Accepted: 01 Nov 2021
Published online: 01 Jun 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article