Barriers and enablers to supply chain knowledge sharing and learning using social media

Abstract

This research looks at the idea of interactive supplier social networks (SSN’s), a novel and comparatively unexplored area in the field of supply chain management. The paper aims to understand the motivations prompting suppliers in a horizontal supply chain to share knowledge within a supplier network. A social constructionist perspective is employed to explore the factors that motivate/prevent engagement in knowledge sharing using social media tools from a customer and supplier’s perspective across an insurance supply chain. The findings reveal corporate and industrial culture, work routines, technology, and a high regulatory environment can have a limiting effect on the generation of voluntary engagement in knowledge sharing between organizations and their supply chains in this sector.