Research on the Influence of Communication on the Trust Between Supply Chain Enterprises Based on Structural Equation Modeling

The revolution of information technology such as blockchain and the Internet of Things has significantly changed the way of communication and trust between supply chain enterprises. However, few studies have focused on this phenomenon. This study aims to examine the effect of communication on trust between supply chain enterprises in the context of emerging information technologies. Based on the literatures, the assumption is proposed by constructing the inter-enterprises trust model with the samples of 196 manufacturing enterprises in China. SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 are used for empirical analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) is adopted to analyze the total reality and validity for measurements. Structural equation model (SEM) is applied to analyze the relationship among the latent variables and construct the hypothesis testing. The results show that communication has a positive effect on trust among supply chain enterprises. Especially, instrumental communication rooted in information technology is positively related to information sharing. What's more, information sharing plays a partial mediating role between instrumental communication and trust among supply chain enterprises. The findings enhance our understanding of the relationships among communication and trust between supply chain in information intelligence age, thereby guiding enterprises to implement informatization strategy in supply chain management.