The Impact of Digital Traceability Capability on Supply Chain External Integration: The Mediating Effect and Boundary Conditions of Inter-Firm Trust

In the context of digital transformation, whether and how the improvement of digital traceability capabilities of food firms can promote the external supply chain integration has attracted great attention from academia and industry. Drawing on resource dependence theory and relational view, this study constructs a theoretical model of the impact of digital traceability capability of food firms on external supply chain integration while using inter-firm trust as mediating and moderating variables. The questionnaire survey method is used to investigate 287 food firms in four areas with national demonstration projects for the digital technology-enabled traceability system in China, and the empirical test is carried out using the hierarchical regression analysis method. The study found that: (1) digital traceability capability of food firms has significant positive effects on both supplier integration and customer integration. (2) supplier trust fully mediates the relationship between digital traceability capability and supplier integration, while customer trust partially mediates the relationship between digital traceability capability and customer integration. (3) supplier trust has a moderating effect on the linkage between digital traceability capability and supplier integration, whereas customer trust does not have a moderating effect on the linkage between digital traceability capability and customer integration.