Determining the Effect of Trust on Supply Chain Network Performance with Linguistic Summarization Over Heterogeneous Information Network

Industries have increasingly adopted supply chain management practices to sustain competitive advantage, fostering collaboration among supply chain partners for effective coordination. While prior research has explored whether inter-partner relationships influence supply chain network performance, these studies have primarily focused on perceived effects rather than emprical observations. This study investigates the impact of trust on supply chain network performance through linguistic summarization. Its originality lies in integrating linguistic summarization with heterogeneous information network modelling, a novel method for evaluating trust-driven performance effects in supply chains. We modelled supply chain networks as heterogeneous information networks, representing companies and products as distinct node types, and their interactions as varied link types. A linguistic summarization framework was developed for these networks, and its application in the automotive industry enabled the validation of literature-derived hypotheses through the truth degree of linguistic summaries. The findings demonstrate that trust significantly enhances organizational performance, particularly in terms of profitability. Supply chain managers, analysts, and researchers especially gain from this study since it offers a data-driven, interpretable framework for assessing how trust affects network performance, which promotes cooperation, transparency, and decision-making.