공급망 참여 기업 사이의 지식 교환: 거래비용 이론과 사회자본 이론 관점의 비교

The review of existing literature on knowledge exchange among supply chain partners reveals that there are two essential forces at work: (1) collaborative behavior - i.e., firms willing to share knowledge with supply chain partners in order to leverage social capital, and (2) opportunistic behavior - i.e., firms wanting to maintain some degrees of knowledge/ information asymmetry to manage supply chain partners’ behaviors. These forces behind knowledge exchange dynamics may be in resonance and in conflict simultaneously. Concurrent assessment of the opposing theories and the contingencies under which each is relevant for the supply chain performance is a useful research undertaking. Based on literature review, we have identified supply chain context as an important contingency for inter-firm knowledge exchange. We have used data from a field study of Korean firms in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry to test the proposed research model. Our findings indicate that, in upstream supply chain relationships, inter-firm trust among supply chain partners has a positive impact on knowledge exchange, while transaction risk concerns does not influence knowledge exchange. In downstream supply chain relationships, neither transaction risk concerns about inter-firm knowledge exchange, nor social capital perspectives influences knowledge exchange significantly. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed in the paper.