Supply Chain Management (SCM) often requires independent organizations to
work together to achieve shared objectives. This collaboration is necessary when
coordinated actions benefit the group more than the uncoordinated efforts of individual
firms. Collaboration is a key dimension of SCM, and it has numerous key dimensions of
its own. These include information sharing, resource sharing, decision synchronization,
incentive alignment, goal congruence, joint knowledge creation, and collaborative
communication. Trust and commitment are also key factors that intertwine with these
dimensions. Successful implementation of these types of collaborative relationships can
lead to a collaborative advantage, where firms working together achieve greater success
than they would have alone.