How to achieve cost savings and strategic performance in purchasing simultaneously: A knowledge-based view

The competitive advantage purchasing provides has been debated for decades. For a novel perspective we derive a theoretical framework grounded in the knowledge-based view in order to examine how purchasing knowledge and purchasing integration impact cost and strategic performance. The derived hypotheses are tested based on extensive secondary data from a large European multinational utility company. The 179 studied ‘purchasing-internal client relationships’ contain real contracted savings data and internal client ratings of purchasing knowledge, purchasing integration and strategic purchasing performance. We show that purchasing knowledge is a major antecedent for both savings and strategic purchasing performance. This effect is further amplified by purchasing integration. With this study, we extend the understanding of the purchasing knowledge–performance link. We conclude that purchasing knowledge becomes particularly valuable when combined with other functions' processes through purchasing integration. This causal chain is also supported through general knowledge-based view theory. Moreover, we provide numerical evidence of the value of knowledge creation and integration processes to purchasing professionals in our managerial implications based on results obtained from actual purchasing savings data.     

The impact of purchasing strategy-structure (mis)fit on purchasing cost and innovation performance

The organizational design literature strongly supports the notion of “structure follows strategy”, and suggests that a misfit between the two has a negative effect on performance. Building on this line of argument, we examine to what extent the (mis)fit between purchasing strategy and purchasing structure impacts purchasing performance. We focus on cost and innovation purchase category strategies, and examine how the deviation from an ideal purchasing structure defined along three dimensions (centralization, formalization, and cross-functionality) impacts purchasing performance. Analysing data collected from 469 firms in ten countries, we demonstrate that a strategy-structure misfit negatively impacts purchasing performance in both cost and innovation strategies. We also find that purchasing proficiency is a mediator in this relationship between misfit and performance. Our findings aid managerial decision making by empirically validating the necessity of having the right purchasing structure for successfully executing different purchasing strategies.     

Purchasing myopia revisited again?

This paper is a response to a recent study of Ramsay and Croom. Based on their study these authors claim that both practitioners and academics regard purchasing mainly as a set of strategic activities and thereby overlook the fundamental importance of operational purchasing activities. Also they state that purchasing development models are unhelpful. In reaction to these provoking statements, this paper describes the evolution of the purchasing profession and stresses the relevance of purchasing development models for the purchasing profession. However, it is recognised that these purchasing development models should be used with great care and that further research is needed to test them empirically.     

The effect of ethical leadership on purchasers’ unethical behavior in China: The moderating role of ethical ideology

This paper examines the role of ethical leadership in managing purchasing agents’ unethical practices. By focusing on the manager-purchasing agent relationship within a firm's purchasing function, we investigate the effect of the manager's ethical leadership on purchasing agents’ unethical behaviors, and explore the moderating role of purchasing agents’ ethical ideology in this relationship. Our scenario-based experiment and survey-based empirical study show that a manager's ethical leadership in a purchasing team plays a critical role in reducing purchasing agents’ unethical behaviors. More importantly, the results reveal that the negative impact of ethical leadership on unethical behaviors is strengthened when the level of purchasing agents’ idealism or relativism is high. In addition, we found that ethical leadership has the strongest negative effect on the unethical behavior of purchasing agents when the agents have high levels of both idealism and relativism.     

制造企业采购成本控制研究

随着市场竞争的加剧,采购成本的降低已成为制造企业迫待解决的问题。然而目前还没有形成系统地降低采购成本的方法。本文正是从货物总成本的角度出发,在考虑采购引起的质量成本的情况下,对制造型企业的采购成本先做了界定,然后通过系统研究采购成本的各项构成来降低采购成本,从而提高企业的利润和市场份额。     

我国企业战略采购的问题及实施策略研究

文中首先阐述了战略采购定义和内涵、战略采购对企业战略实施的价值,然后通过分析我国企业战略采购存在问题,提出了实施企业战略采购的对策建议。战略采购对企业采购具有重要的意义,要做好战略采购,建议从采购计划、供应商的选择和管理、采购组织和业务流程重组、战略采购目标管理体系构建等方面着手实施。     

汽车零部件联合采购运作模式研究

文章在分析传统汽车零部件采购和零部件联合采购的基础上,构建了汽车零部件联合采购模型,探索性的提出三种汽车零部件采购联盟的运作模式:委托代理式汽车零部件采购联盟、合资式汽车零部件采购联盟、第三方运营的汽车零部件采购联盟。并对每种模式进行了详细的分析,同时提出采购联盟组建过程中需要注意的问题,为汽车零部件联合采购提供了理论基础。     

Organizing IT purchases: Evidence from a global study

Information technology (IT) purchasing is covering an increasing part of companies’ expenditure. Scholars mainly investigated IT purchasing in terms of make or buy drivers from an IT perspective. Similarly, companies have been focusing on make or buy decisions and specifications definition in relation to technological characteristics. This often resulted in failures related to the goods/services purchased due to e.g. lack of negotiation skills, contracting, and suppliers’ relationship management. Accordingly, IT purchasing might require new structures and processes management.The purpose of the paper is to investigate what are the possible configurations for IT purchasing, and how these configurations are characterized in terms of purchasing process (i.e., strategic purchasing, sourcing and supply) and organization (i.e., roles involved, level of centralization, and span of control). Furthermore, the paper asks how IT relevance and purchasing maturity might affect these configurations. Through 12 case studies of leading international companies, four main configurations of the organization and the purchasing process for IT purchasing were identified, namely neutral (no specific approach is in place), IT oriented (the IT department takes the lead over the purchasing department), purchasing oriented (the purchasing department manages the whole IT sourcing process) and IT strategic (IT and purchasing departments jointly manage the IT purchasing process). The choice of the configuration is driven by IT strategic importance (low for neutral and purchasing oriented) and purchasing maturity of the company (low for neutral and IT oriented).     

Purchasing strategies in the Kraljic matrix—A power and dependence perspective

Kraljic's purchasing portfolio approach has inspired many academics to undertake further research into purchasing portfolio models. Refined models typically recommend one purchasing strategy for each portfolio quadrant. Yet, it has been shown that purchasers make a clear distinction between alternative purchasing strategies within each quadrant. The fundamental assumption of portfolio models seems to be that differences in power and dependence between buyers and suppliers exist. Still, little is known about how these concepts influence the choice for a specific purchasing strategy. In this paper, ‘relative power’ and ‘total interdependence’ for a number of portfolio-based purchasing strategies have been quantified empirically, using data from a comprehensive survey among Dutch purchasing professionals. The survey data largely confirmed the hypotheses that were deduced from the literature.     

Studying purchasing specialization in organizations: a multi-agent simulation approach

This paper reports on a series of multi-agent-based simulation experiments. The purpose of these experiments is to investigate how factors like task-complexity, availability of skills and corporate policies determine the degree to which a firm may benefit from a specific, dedicated purchasing department. Particular attention is paid to the purchasing of non-product-related items and services. Among the factors investigated are: corporate purchasing policies, available information, capacity of organizational members and the nature of the various purchasing activities. Preliminary results suggest that most of these factors impact on the degree of involvement of a purchasing department as well as the quality of the purchasing activities carried out. The results show the limits of Purchasing's added value and the importance of organizational learning in that respect.     

Purchasing management consulting services—From management autonomy to purchasing involvement

The purchasing of management consulting services is a challenging area for purchasing agents to become involved in. A study of six organizations shows large variations in terms of the extent and way in which they were involved ranging from ad hoc and clerical approaches to their systematic and central participation. Based on a comparison of the cases, enablers of purchasing involvement are discussed, including the status of the purchasing function, managerial use of and attitudes towards consultants, how the management consulting service and the purchasing situation are framed, and the implementation strategy. We conclude that what are generally regarded as sound purchasing practices can also work in the case of management consultants. This, however, requires a good understanding of the consulting service in the client organization. We suggest that the traditionally marginal role of purchasing agents may be better understood as a consequence of the characteristics of the consultant–client relationship than any essential characteristics of the consulting service.     

Organizational structure characteristics’ influences on international purchasing performance in different purchasing locations

This study contributes to the understanding of how firms should structure their purchasing organization to improve their performance. While the research into structural characteristics’ impacts on purchasing performance is evolving, it is still incomplete, especially concerning the contingencies on different purchasing environments. Drawing on ideas from the organizational information processing and contingency approaches as well as the international business literature, the present study proposes a model in which three key organizational structure characteristics – centralization, standardization, and specialization – are associated with purchasing performance. This study posits that the relationships are contingent on a purchasing location’s formal and informal institutional context. Based on a sample of 195 German manufacturers, the model is empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The findings support the relevance of organizational structure characteristics for international purchasing and firm performance and they also support the notion that the effects are contingent on the purchasing location’s institutional context.     

A contingency-configurational view of purchasing operations: The mediating role between supplier relationship and firm performance

The literature has considered purchasing and supply management activities from a strategic perspective, but the tactical role of purchasing operations has yet to be explored. Purchasing operations represent the internal modus operandi for transactions with suppliers, comprising three main activities – purchasing transactions, purchasing document management, and purchasing assessment – and supportive activities like purchasing knowledge management. Following the contingency theory, we hypothesize that these internal activities mediate between external supplier relationship management and firm performance (financial, customer and delivery performance). Complementarily, we adopt the configurational theory to hypothesize that this link between external and internal activities can be combined to increase firm performance. To test this contingency-configurational view of purchasing operations, we conducted a quantitative survey with 234 companies. The regression results of the contingency analysis show that purchasing operations activities have a full mediation role in most relationships between supplier relationship management and firm performance, while knowledge management positively moderates the association between purchasing assessment and customer performance. Moreover, the cluster analysis for the configurational analysis shows that supplier relationship management and purchasing operations follow maturity levels of joint implementation of internal and external activities. Our findings shed light on the purchasing operations by defining the activities representing this concept and showing their role in supply management. We also contribute to practice by proposing an integrative system that helps managers organize the firm's purchasing and supply management activities.     

构建规范的政府采购监控机制

文章从系统科学角度对政府采购监控机制进行了定义，强调了建立规范的政府采购监控机制的必要性。选择了有效的监控模式，并从采购主体和供应商两个角度对政府采购监控机制进行了规范构建。     

Linking green purchasing capabilities to environmental and economic performance: The moderating role of firm size

This study identifies firms’ green purchasing capabilities, classified into operational capabilities and dynamic capabilities, and measures their effects on the environmental and economic performance of a firm. We developed instruments to measure operational green purchasing capabilities and dynamic green purchasing capabilities. This study also investigates the moderating effect of firm size on the relationship between green purchasing capabilities and firm performance. The structural equation model (SEM) is used to analyse 239 responses from Japanese manufacturing companies. The results indicate that their green purchasing capabilities positively affect environmental and economic performance. Operational capabilities and dynamic capabilities have different levels of effects on green purchasing performance. A further analysis of the moderating effect of firm size shows that the high economic performance of green purchasing relies on the level of dynamic capabilities rather than firm size.     

存货购销中最优期权合约交易量研究

在分析利用期权合约规避价格波动风险的原理的基础上,分别给出存货购销两个环节中可以运用的期权策略,然后利用均值方差模型计算使投资组合达到效用最大化时所对应的最优期权合约交易量及其对经营利润的影响,研究发现：在存货采购环节,企业可以通过购入看涨期权、购入看涨期权同时售出看跌期权两种策略控制采购价格波动的风险,在存货销售环节,企业可以通过购入看跌期权、同时购入看跌期权并售出看涨期权两种策略来稳定销售利润;从最优期权合约交易量及其对企业经营利润的影响来看,期权工具在控制存货采购价格、稳定销售利润中可以发挥良好作用。     

基于B/S模式的集中采购方案的设计与实现

文章让集团的下属单位和部门的采购、进销存、结算等数据信息在一个集中的数据库内平台上运行,集团通过该平台进行集中管理采购商品,对整个采购环节进行管理和监控,为集团及时准确的掌握采购行为,及时作出采购决策,极大的发挥了规模优势,降低采购成本,提升企业的经济效益。     

Intra-organizational legitimization strategies used by purchasing managers

This paper addresses the issue of how purchasing managers can develop the purchasing department's legitimacy within an organization. A qualitative exploratory approach based on six cases has been used since: (1) there has not yet been a research performed on this topic; and (2) an analysis of internal legitimization strategies must take into consideration the context and the nature of the relationships among departments. Our analysis shows that in order to create, maintain or increase the purchasing department's internal legitimacy, purchasing managers have to do very well about two complementary strategic orientations: (1) identify and attract the best suppliers; (2) identify and implement collaborative processes and coordination mechanisms that cannot be duplicated by competitors. In fact, supply managers actually develop legitimization strategies based internally and externally, since a higher level of internal legitimacy can also be supported partially by external stakeholders, who then influence the other departments' and top management's perceptions.Our study also shows that the strategies used by purchasing managers take different forms depending which legitimacy dimension (cognitive, pragmatic, or moral legitimacy) they are trying to influence. Moreover, a purchasing department's legitimacy strategy is developed based on a few important factors: (1) where the purchasing department stands at a given time in terms of the contribution perceived, similar to a "balance sheet" evaluation; (2) the purchasing personnel's technical and relational competencies; and (3) the extent of their implication in the strategic choices leading to the development of a competitive advantage for the organization they work for. It seems that any effort to take steps based on coherent legitimization strategies could help improve both a purchasing department's legitimacy level and its development level. From this standpoint, this study also shows that the purchasing department's internal legitimacy is a crucial driver of purchasing practices.     

我国企业实施绿色采购的影响因素研究

绿色采购是企业减少浪费提高效率提升竞争力的重要环节。基于对144家企业的调查,使用统计软件SPSS进行因子分析提取出了影响企业绿色采购实施的五个主因子,在此基础上进行了回归分析,结果发现领导的支持对企业绿色采购的实施影响最为显著,而环境管理成本将阻碍企业绿色采购的实施。     

An analysis of research into the future of purchasing and supply management

Business organisations are going through rapid external environmental and internal organisational changes due to increasing globalisation, E-business, and outsourcing. As a result, the future of purchasing and supply management—as a function within organisations, as a process that spans organisation boundaries and as a profession—raises important concerns for both organisations and the purchasing professional. This paper considers a broad and rather fragmented body of empirical evidence and analyses 42 relevant empirical studies on the future of purchasing and supply management. The major findings are reported in terms of changes in business contexts, purchasing strategy, structure, role and responsibility, system development and skills. Cross-sectional comparative analyses were also conducted to examine variation by sector, firm type, people's roles in purchasing, and country. A number of major implications for the purchasing function, process and professional bodies are presented together with suggestions for future research to address significant gaps in the current body of knowledge.