Is network trust beneficial for supply network resilience? A simulation analysis

Trust is widely recognized as a predictor of positive supply network performance in terms of cost reduction and enhanced service level. However, little is known about the effect of trust on supply network resilience, i.e. the ability of the network to cope with perturbations by absorbing the disturbance and/or to quickly recover. This paper overcomes this gap by adopting a recent conceptualization of network-level trust and by developing an agent-based model of supply network, simulating its resilient performance. A simulation analysis is carried out to assess the effect of trust on the resilience of supply networks showing different interdependence structures. Results confirm that trust positively affects supply network resilience. However, we find that the benefit varies across interdependence structures, being almost neglected for supply networks exhibiting a dependent structure. Furthermore, we achieve that the higher the frequency of disruptions, the lower the beneficial effect of trust for supply network resilience.