Abstract

The Effects of trust and relationship commitment on information sharing and alliance performance: evidence from "a company + farmers" in China

Author(s): Shaoling Fu, Jiabao Lin

The purpose of the study is to explore howthe farmers are willing to share the production information with the company in their alliance “a company + farmers” and whether information sharing enhances alliance performance or not. This research builds a theoreticalmodel of the relationships among trust, relationship commitment, information sharing and alliance performance. Choosing the farmers cooperating with the company as respondents, we collected 462 questionnaires, and conducted empirical study on the relationships among trust, relationship commitment, information sharing and alliance performance using structural equation modeling. The empirical results show that trust has significant positive effects on relationship commitment and information sharing. Relationship commitment has a significant positive effect on information sharing and information sharing has a significant positive effect on alliance performance. Tomotivate farmers to share production information, agricultural companies need to keep trust and relationship commitment with farmers. Only then can the company availably monitor the production process of agricultural products and thus improve the quality and safety of the products