Research on paths of opportunistic behavior avoidance and performance improvement in food supply chain from the perspective of social control

It is essential to avoid opportunistic behaviors of food supply chain members to guarantee food safety and sustainable supply. This research adopted the perspective of supply chain membership governance to discuss the critical mechanisms of opportunistic behavior avoidance and performance improvement in the food supply chain. Two information-sharing mechanisms (information sharing with customers and information sharing with suppliers) were used as mediating variables to explore the mechanisms of how social control, information sharing, and opportunistic behavior worked on supply chain performance. Furthermore, an online questionnaire survey was conducted to collect 210 data samples from the food manufacturing industry in China, and the structural equation model method was applied to test the research hypotheses. According to the empirical research findings, social control can directly reduce opportunistic behaviors of supply chain members and reduce such behaviors indirectly via the mediating factor of information sharing; social control affects the supply chain performance via the mediating factors of information sharing and opportunistic behavior, instead of directly improving supply chain performance. Two information sharing mechanisms vary in their mechanism of influence. Information sharing with customers reduces opportunistic behaviors, but does not directly improve supply chain performance. Information sharing with suppliers enhances supply chain performance and reduces opportunistic behaviors. This research offers theoretical and practical suggestions for performance improvement and opportunistic behavior avoidance to promote food supply chain management.