A Framework for Evaluating Information Transparency in Supply Chains

Abstract

Private, public, profit, and non-profit organizations and society as a whole currently face a significant reliable information necessity problem. Especially supply chains need trustworthy information to perform their activities successfully. This study aims to propose a framework and identify how reliability of information can be evaluated and measured through the concept of transparency. In this context, dimensions such as comprehensiveness, regularity, timeliness, content, scope, and user-friendliness are the pillars of the proposed framework. Selected criteria have been used as inputs to develop the information transparency level. The fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) is used to obtain weights of these inputs, and data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used for the determination of the efficiency ranking for transparency. Results demonstrated that content, scope, and comprehensiveness dimensions have 75% impact on the transparency of data. The remaining 25% is affected by timeliness, regularity, and user-friendliness.