The Role of Inter-firm Knowledge Sharing in Outsourcing of Logistics Services (Case Study: Guilan Industrial Estates)

Nowadays, the process of knowledge sharing has gone beyond organizational boundaries and the issue of knowledge sharing is discussed widely among different companies and organizations in order to improve their performance. With the emergent of outsourcing process and increasing attention of organizations toward it, managers are more inclined to outsource their services; but, the problem of interaction with outsourcing service providers has always occupied their minds. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the role of knowledge sharing between outsourcing companies and logistic service providers (LSP) in satisfaction with LSP's performance in Guilan Industrial Estates. This paper is completed with the cooperation of 165 company managers in Guilan Industrial Estates which has at least outsourced one of their activities, and has more than 20 personnel. To test the hypothesis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling are used. The results indicate a positive impact of inter-firm knowledge, interactions between relationship and inter-firm knowledge sharing, and communication process on satisfaction. It was also found that inter-firm knowledge sharing has a positive impact on communication processes. However, the effect of interfirm knowledge sharing on inter-firm collaboration, and inter-firm collaboration on satisfaction were not significant.