The Effect of a Third‐Party Facilitator on Supply Chain Collaboration: Evidence From a Dutch Supply Chain Network

Collaboration among supply chain actors leads to improved market access and reduced logistics costs. However, in practice, collaboration initiatives are challenging to implement due to barriers such as sharing sensitive information, coordination complexity, and lack of operational visibility. The impact of such barriers may be mitigated by a third‐party facilitator—an organization that facilitates coordination among actors and safeguards sensitive information. We assess the impact of such a facilitator on supply chain collaboration. We further investigate whether the facilitator can induce a positive second‐order effect on environmental impact and logistics costs through improved collaboration. We tested our hypotheses using survey interviews in member organizations of Connekt, a logistics facilitator. Our results suggest that the facilitator increases the number of collaborations, leading to a reduction in supply chain costs and a positive environmental impact. Lastly, we demonstrate that larger firms further improve collaborations, in the presence of the facilitator.