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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/13598549810215379. When citing the article, please cite: Robert E. Spekman, John W. Kamauff Jr, Niklas Myhr, (1998), “An empirical investigation into supply chain management: a perspective on partnerships”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 3 Iss 2 pp. 53 - 67.

To investigate how supply‐chain partners can achieve collaboration under varying circumstances (transactional types) by developing trust‐based social foundations and by utilizing electronically mediated exchange.

A conceptual framework illustrates the roles of trust and electronically mediated exchange in achieving collaboration and its hypotheses are tested with a sample of 157 supply‐chain relationships of international subsidiaries of Nordic multinational corporations (MNCs).

Finds that collaborative partnerships can be achieved both via trust and through electronically mediated exchange. Results also indicate that electronically mediated exchange more readily enhances collaboration in exchange relationships involving standardized products, while trust plays a larger role when customized products are being exchanged.

The transactional type involved impacts the relative effectiveness of trust and electronically mediated exchange in achieving collaboration. This finding might stimulate research of the impact of other contextual factors. Limitations include that only managers on one side of inter‐organizational dyads were surveyed.

Practicing managers need to prioritize the time and effort they spend developing partnerships. While both trust and electronically mediated exchange play pivotal roles in fostering collaboration, managers involved in the exchange of standardized products can place a relative emphasis on electronically mediated exchange, while trust is of higher importance when customized products are being exchanged.

This paper examines the complex interplay of trust and electronically mediated exchange in achieving collaborative supply‐chain partnerships and offers guidance to practicing managers as well as implications of theoretical interest to academics.

States that we have witnessed, over the last several years, a profound change in understanding the dynamics of competitive advantage. Managers now acknowledge that a firm’s success is tied, in part, to the strength of its weakest supply chain partner. This paper develops the concept of supply chain management and argues that only through close collaborative linkages through the entire supply chain, can one fully achieve the benefits of cost reduction and revenue enhancing behaviors. Data are presented that look at a range of supply chain management practices and processes. By examining differences in practices and processes between buyers and sellers, along with the supply chain, attempts to understand better the challenges facing managers who espouse supply chain management. Also proposes a change in mind set for the traditional procurement manager and present insights for him/her to adapt to the requirements of the new competition.