The Relationships between Interactional Justice, Trust, and Logistics Performance in Supply Chain Management

This study empirically analyzes the impact of justice and trust, both of which fall under the umbrella of business ethics, on the inter-company relationships within the supply chain. The study further investigates how these factors affect the quantitative performance of logistics operations. For the analysis of the research model, interactional justice was divided into interpersonal and informational justice, and trust was divided into cognitive and emotional trust. Subsequently, surveys were conducted with employees in supply chain-related departments in South Korea to explore the pathway that leads to quantitative performance. Hypotheses were then tested through structural equation modeling. An empirical analysis revealed that both interpersonal and informational justice have a significant positive impact on both dimensions of trust and that both cognitive and emotional trust positively affect logistics performance. Based on this study's results, we concluded that interactional justice and trust are key intangible assets within the supply chain that influence quantitative logistics performance. Global supply chains are rapidly changing, undergoing repeated dismantling and reorganization. In such an environment, it is challenging to assert sustainability through existing assets and practices, and the discovery of new growth drivers is gaining attention. This study proposes a new driver for the supply chain by defining justice and trust as intangible assets and deriving a method to quantify them.