Purchasing practices in small- to medium-sized enterprises: An examination of strategic purchasing adoption,supplier evaluation and supplier capabilities

The benefits that can be derived from effective purchasing have long been recognised in the management literature. Despite a growing body of research on purchasing practices in small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a number of key issues remain under-examined. We investigate SME purchasing practices in terms of (1) the degree to which purchasing is regarded as a ‘strategic’ activity by SMEs, (2) the use of supplier evaluation systems by SMEs and (3) the supplier capabilities emphasised by SME buyers. Through a survey of UK SME managers, we find that purchasing practices varied greatly across SMEs. Purchasing formality is generally low with limited evidence of purchasing being employed strategically and with many firms not undertaking formal supplier evaluations. In terms of supplier capabilities, we find that SMEs differ in the capabilities they prioritise, with three distinct groups evident. These groups are labelled ‘holistic’, ‘process’ and ‘logistics’ based on the supplier capabilities they emphasise. These three groups of firms also differed in terms of the emphasis they placed on strategic purchasing, supplier evaluation, technological focus and how they compete in their main markets, but not in terms of firm size or number of suppliers utilised. The implications of these findings are discussed and areas meriting future research are proposed.     

MANAGEMENT, MASCULINITY AND MANIPULATION: FROM PATERNALISM TO CORPORATE STRATEGY IN FINANCIAL SERVICES IN BRITAIN*

This article is concerned to demonstrate that paternalism and strategic management as forms, styles or ‘techniques’of managing people and organizations, are both constitutive of and embedded in what we term a ‘discourse of masculinism’. Within the context of the UK financial services industry, we examine how this discourse reflects and reproduces management practices, and reconstitutes individuals in accordance with masculinist priorities. This has the effect of privileging men vis-a-vis women, serves to rank some men above others, and maintains as dominant certain forms and practices of masculinity. We identify two of these as ‘paternalistic masculinity’and ‘competitive masculinity’respectively, regarding them as concrete manifestations of the interplay between historically shifting forms of management and masculinities in operation.     

The ‘reach’ of employee participation in decision‐making: exploring the Aristotelian roots of workplace democracy

This article examines the ‘reach’, or the distribution, of employee participation in decision‐making (PDM) within organisations. It makes a unique contribution to the wider employee voice literature by asking what types of employees have a ‘say’ in strategic decision‐making and, in similar vein, what types of employees are denied participation, and why. In order to answer this under‐investigated research question, the article presents an Aristotelian analysis of the concept of citizenship in the ‘best regime’. In the light of this analysis, the article concludes that some groups of employees are excluded from PDM on the basis of a perceived lack of ‘excellence’.     

Understanding the effect of market orientation on circular economy practices: The mediating role of closed-loop orientation in German SMEs

The implementation of circular economy (CE) practices is considered a key driver towards sustainable development of firms. Earlier studies point to the general strategic approach of market orientation as an antecedent to CE practice implementation. Still, insights are limited as the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. Based on a sample of 121 German small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), we empirically examine how the strategic approach of closed-loop orientation mediates the relationship between market orientation and the implementation of three types of CE practices. Using structural equation modelling, we find that while market orientation is positively related to all three types of CE practices, closed-loop orientation mediates these relationships for only two. Our study extends CE literature by suggesting that market orientation is translated into closed-loop orientation to spur CE practice implementation. We also offer a differentiated understanding of CE practice implementation in the context of German SMEs.     

Human resource management and organizational strategies in German- and US-owned companies

The development of the international economy over the past twenty years has bred considerable diversity in the form and substance of employment relations (labour-management relations, human resource management practices) throughout the world. Cases of ‘social partnership’ are today found in the ‘free market’ United States economy; some companies operating in Germany's ‘social’ market economy are rejecting traditional forms of social partnership in the name of more unilateral strategies.

This paper examines (a) the extent to which ‘strategic diversity’ – variation in human resource strategies and policies – is possible within the heavily institutionalized, co-operative and codeterminative German economy, and (b) how managers perceive the effects of different kinds of HR approaches on organizational change and industrial adjustment. It is based on empirical evidence drawn from seven large chemicals companies operating in Germany – three of them US-owned firms and four German-owned.

The main conclusions are that considerable strategic diversity is possible within the German context, and that managers perceive distinct costs and benefits to specific aspects of the typically American ‘unilateral’ style and the more German ‘negotiated’ approach to structuring the relationship with human resources. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these trade-offs for the transferability of HR strategies across international borders, giving special attention to policies to avoid some of these potential costs.     

Back to Little Havana: Controlling Gentrification in the Heart of Cuban Miami

In this article we examine the nature and implementation of governing strategies to control the gentrification of Little Havana, the symbolic heart of Cuban Miami. We ask how Cuban American power relations at the neighborhood level operate to ‘produce’ the citizen best suited to fulfill and help reproduce policies and practices of ‘securing’ in order to gentrify Little Havana. Based on long‐term ethnographic research in Little Havana and Miami, our analysis reveals how governance operates through neighborhood‐level intermediaries and interpersonal relations. We apply Foucault's ‘pastoral power’ to Miami's Cuban exile community in order to explain how the ‘Cuban‐ness’ and ‘Latin‐ness’ of governing relations and the personification of political power are crucial to socio‐spatial control in Little Havana. Elites shape the conduct of individuals in order to achieve strategic goals in the name of community interest. Residents are key partners in the relational ensemble that governs and disciplines the neighborhood comprised mostly of low‐income, Central‐American immigrants.     

Theoretical implications from the case of performance-based human resource management practices in Japan: management fashion,institutionalization and strategic human resource management perspectives

In Japan, a new type of human resource management (HRM) practices called ‘performance-based HRM practices’ (seika-shugi in Japanese) emerged in the 1990s, and has been adopted by many Japanese firms. In this paper, I illustrate how these type of practices emerged as a management fashion, diffused across a large number of Japanese firms, and became institutionalized in the Japanese business context; and discuss the relationship between performance-based HRM practices and firm performance. This illustration is used to develop a theoretical framework to better understand the relationship between HRM practices and firm performance by integrating theories of management fashions, institutionalization and strategic HRM. Suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Citizen Participation in Urban Governance in the Context of Democratization: Evidence from Low‐Income Neighbourhoods in Mexico

Participation has recently been subject to renewed attention and critique in the context of neoliberal urban governance. This is especially relevant in countries where decentralization and democratization in the context of neoliberalism have led to increased promotion of local‐level participation. This article suggests that current critiques of participation's potential for democratic citizen engagement in a neoliberal context would benefit from further reflection on how participation is implemented in contexts, particularly the global South, where neoliberalism and democracy may be understood differently. Different ‘cultures of engagement’ in specific settings suggest that understandings and practices of participation draw on different traditions, including corporatism and self‐help. This article seeks to add to the debate by exploring the socio‐spatial consequences of participation structures in low‐income neighbourhoods in a provincial Mexican city. Based on qualitative research in two low‐income neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico, it examines how the provisions of the local citizen‐participation framework compare with residents' experiences of it. Formalized conceptions of participation, framed as involvement in service provision, interact with and shape residents' activities in developing their neighbourhoods. This has consequences for urban development there, including the reflection and reproduction of social and spatial marginalization.     

Cracks in the Creative City: The Contradictions of Community Arts Practice

The recent flurry of research about arts‐led regeneration initiatives illuminates how contemporary arts festivals can become complicit in the production of urban inequality. But researchers rarely engage with detailed empirical examples that shed light on the contradictory role that artists sometimes play within these spectacularized events. Similar research in performance studies connects the political limits and potential of social practice arts — interventions that encourage artists and non‐artists to co‐produce work — as civic boosters strive to stage cities in order to attract investment. In this article, I explore the case study of Streetscape: Living Space at Regent Park, a participatory artistic intervention programmed in a public housing neighbourhood that is undergoing redevelopment in Toronto, Canada. Streetscape was part of the Luminato festival, an elite booster coalition‐led festival of ‘creativity’. I refer to these arts interventions to demonstrate how artists engaging in social practice arts can become complicit in naturalizing colonial gentrification processes at multiple scales. But I also reveal how artists can leverage heterogeneous arts‐led regeneration strategies to make space for ‘radical social praxis’ (Kwon, 2004), interventions that challenge hegemonic regimes. I conclude by interrogating the effectiveness of place‐based efforts in unsettling the ‘creative city’.     

Commitment to Sustainability in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: The Influence of Strategic Orientations and Management Values

Ecosystem degradation and social sustainability have become important issues in the corporate sphere during the last few decades. However, research discussing corporate social responsibility and related concepts has often focused on larger companies, sometimes neglecting the specifics of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between two common strategic orientations, market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), in relation to sustainability commitment, sustainability practices and management values in SMEs. Questionnaire responses from 450 Swedish SMEs were analyzed, confirming the influence of MO, EO and sustainability practices on commitment to sustainability, implying that firms committed to sustainability see both market and entrepreneurial advantages of sustainability. The results also show that different parts of MO and EO differ in importance for commitment to sustainability among SMEs. Implications concern the importance for firms and policymakers to work with sustainability issues using both internal and external perspectives. © 2015 The Authors. Business Strategy and the Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Employee ‘voice’ and working environment in post‐communist New Member States: an empirical analysis of Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania

This article examines employee ‘voice’ in workplace health and safety in three Baltic New Member States by means of a cross‐national survey. The data point to unresolved problems of voice in the context of rather poor working environments. These present opportunities for collective renewal by trade unions, but paradoxically are more likely to be addressed by employers in the context of significant labour shortages created by a post‐European Union accession labour ‘exit’.     

More voice after more exit? Unstable industrial relations in Central Eastern Europe

The article examines the industrial relations developments in the post‐communist countries that entered the EU in 2004. Rather than introducing the ‘European Social Model’, EU accession has led to some social tensions, in spite of relatively strong economic growth, because of deregulation, European Monetary Union conditions and the enduring need to compete for foreign investment. EU institutional promotion of social dialogue through the Directive on Information and Consultation of Workers, sector social dialogue committees and the European Employment Strategy has only had limited effects in increasing the ‘voice’ of employees in employment relations. National‐level social dialogue has produced poor results and has even been weakened in Slovenia (where it was originally strong) and, initially, in Slovakia. The lack of ‘voice’ for employees has led to increased ‘exit’ through political populism/abstention and migration. A double paradox emerges. Pro‐labour policies are being developed not by the EU, but rather by its opposite, Euro‐sceptical governments (in Poland and Slovakia), while in the workplaces, employers are forced to concessions not by their employees, but by those who leave and cause labour shortages. However, there is also some evidence of a resurgent ‘voice’ from below, through strikes, organising campaigns, informal collective protests and collective bargaining innovations. Drawing on both theory and history of industrial relations, it is concluded that some preconditions for more stable social compromises including more ‘voice’ are emerging.     

Capturing complexity: developing an integrated approach to analysing HRM in SMEs

This article presents a framework to evaluate HRM in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), using an open systems theoretical perspective. In presenting an open systems perspective the objective is to overcome the limitations of existing theorising in HRM, in particular to facilitate a move away from the ‘small is beautiful’ versus ‘bleak house’ stereotypes evident in much of the literature concerned with HRM in SMEs. The evidence is drawn from six SMEs operating in the Republic of Ireland, using a case study method. The findings show that a complex interplay of external structural factors and internal dynamics shaped HRM in each of the companies. HRM was not the coherent set of practices typically identified in the literature but rather was often informal and emergent. It is argued that the open systems theoretical framework enables a move beyond mere recognition of the complexity and heterogeneity of HRM in SMEs, towards an understanding, accommodation and explanation of particularistic factors.     

Producing Localized Commodity Frontiers at the End of Cheap Nature: An Analysis of Eco‐scalar Carbon Fixes and their Consequences

There is no single ‘great’ commodity frontier whose exploitation under current socio‐technical conditions could fuel capital accumulation at the global scale. According to Jason Moore, this represents the ‘end of Cheap Nature’ and signals a terminal crisis for capitalism as we know it. In this article we complicate this assertion by showing how, in the context of global environmental governance frameworks of carbon control, a diverse range of actors situated at multiple scales are intensifying the use of cities and their hinterlands for the production/transgression of localized commodity frontiers. We draw on scholarship on uneven geographical development, state‐led restructuring and eco‐scalar fixes to present two case studies from different segments of the carbon cycle in the global South. The first case demonstrates how the introduction of waste‐to‐energy technology in Delhi facilitated the generation of ‘carbon credits’ while waste matter itself became a commodity. The second discusses attempts by the Brazilian state of Amazonas (Amazônia) aspiring to shift from rainforest exploitation to financialized conservation supported by the ‘green global city’ functions of metropolitan Manaus. These cases demonstrate that although the global carbon‐control regime may enable accumulation, implementation remains speculative, and localized commodity frontiers provoke social resistances that jeopardize their durability.     

UK environmental policy and the small firm: broadening the focus

The poor environmental performance of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK has been attributed to a wide range of barriers, both internal and external to the firm. However, the debate has seldom considered the interplay of factors beyond ‘the firm’. In order for the debate to progress we emphasize the importance of situating the environmental practices of small firms within a context of national policy arrangements. A lack of institutional enfranchisement for SMEs in the UK is a key factor in understanding why environmental policies have yet to be successful in encouraging more environmentally proactive behaviour within this sector. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

Occupational health and safety in transitional Lithuania

Using the example of occupational health and safety regulation, this article examines the tensions between neo‐liberalism and social democratic policy approaches in the context of pre‐accession transitional Lithuania. It is argued that attempts to provide a ‘business‐friendly’ investment climate may be creating a ‘race to the bottom’ as legislative failures to provide for employee voice come into conflict with assumptions of the so‐called European social model.     

Structuration of precarious employment in economically constrained firms: the case of Dutch agriculture

Precarious employment practices such as short‐term contracts, low pay and lack of voice have undesired outcomes for workers, because these impede employees in their ethical rights to freedom, well‐being and equality. Still, precarious employment practice is common in sectors with restrained economic conditions, such as Dutch agriculture. However, in every restrained industry, examples of more socially responsible employment management are reported. The question why some firms develop more socially responsible employment systems when economic conditions predict the use of low cost, precarious employment systems is central in this article. Structuration theory provides a lens to understand how employers position their employment practice in the wider (institutionalised) social context. Insight in the reproduction circuits that link employers' actions with their social context (product, market, institutions and policies, demographics) can reveal where, at a sector level, change to avoid unethical employment practice could start.     

Compliance with Producer Responsibility Legislation: Experiences from UK Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises

This study investigated the legal performance of UK small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) with producer responsibility legislation. The research incorporated legislation controlling packaging and packaging waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment and the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. Compliance audits and interviews were conducted with SMEs, regulators, government officials and SME support organisations. A total of 44 SMEs from the north‐west of England were audited between April and September 2008. The study's findings suggest:

• low levels of ‘letter of the law’ and ‘spirit of the law’ compliance;
• enforcement activity and surveillance of SME compliance was generally low; there has not been any formal enforcement action taken under the WEEE Regulations or the RoHS Regulations and enforcement under the PER Regulations is extremely low.

Recommendations on how to improve SME compliance control systems are provided. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

A New Strategy Against Hostile Takeovers: A Model of Defense in Participations

This article examines the efficacy of a ‘defense in participations’ policy consisting of competitors acquiring cross‐equity participations within the same industry to prevent hostile takeovers. This defense in participations strategy provides disincentive for raiders as partial ownerships increase market power of competitors and then reinforce the ‘outsider effect’. Also, we find conditions for a general result, which state that takeovers are less profitable in an industry with participations rather than in an industry without any capital links. We provide information to regulators about the positive social impact of cross participations in the context of mergers and expose an economic dilemma between a ‘laissez‐faire’ and an interventionist approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.