The impact of justice on information sharing and innovation performance: a social exchange theory perspective

Purpose With more demand-driven innovation activities, manufacturers must proactively engage in information sharing activities with their customers for better innovation performance. This study aims to inquire into the impacts of information sharing activities between manufacturers and customers (including information system usage and information content sharing) on manufacturers’ innovation performance and considers interfirm justice (including distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice) as information sharing antecedents. Design/methodology/approach The social exchange theory is applied to develop the conceptual model. The authors examine the conceptual model with the structural equation modeling approach using data collected from 213 Chinese manufacturers. Findings Interactional justice promotes information system usage. Both interactional justice and procedural justice increase information content sharing, while distributive justice decreases it. Information content sharing directly improves innovation performance and fully mediates the relationship between information system usage and innovation performance. Originality/value This research enriches empirical studies on justice-information sharing relationships by systematically investigating the impacts of three types of justice on different information sharing activities. It also adds to the application of social exchange theory in the practices of interfirm justice and information sharing. Besides, it probes into influencing mechanisms of different information sharing activities, information system usage and information content sharing, on innovation performance. The findings can guide firms to implement interfirm justice and information sharing practices for superior innovation performance.