Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management最新文献

Buyer-supplier relationships may be exposed to ethically questionable purchasing practices. This can have major financial and reputational consequences for individuals and organisations. Various studies have assessed procurement professionals' ethical judgements regarding questionable purchasing practices and a handful have estimated the prevalence of these practices. The insights from these studies, however, cannot be straightforwardly extrapolated to today's practice. First, the studies have mostly estimated prevalence without controlling for social desirability bias. The estimation of the prevalence of questionable practices based on subjects' responses is non-trivial, as it may be prone to socially desirable response behaviour. Second, most of the studies were conducted decades ago and the role of the purchasing function has changed significantly ever since. Based on these observations, the present study makes two main contributions to the literature. First, it methodologically extends extant studies by estimating the prevalence of questionable purchasing practices in Europe while controlling for social desirability bias. Specifically, the present study applies the recently developed Extended Crosswise Model to test for socially desirable answers and presents these prevalence estimates in comparison to estimates obtained via a direct questioning technique. The findings highlight the ongoing prevalence of unethical practices in buyer-supplier relationships and the need for organisations to be vigilant in addressing them. Post-hoc analyses indicate that gender, work experience, perceived levels of public sector corruption, and governmental procurement agreements affect the involvement in questionable purchasing practices. Second, the present study examines how earlier and newly identified questionable practices are perceived in the current business environment. The results suggest that ethical perceptions have changed and that most unethical practices are observed in supplier selection. From a theoretical perspective, the present study responds to both the call to further investigate ethical issues in supply chains (Quarshie et al., 2016) and the call to address social desirability bias in purchasing and supply management research (Ried et al., 2022). From a managerial perspective, our research can serve as a starting point for organisations to develop strategies to mitigate their impact and promote ethical behaviour throughout the purchasing process.

Digital supply chain management provided opportunities to mitigate the effects of supply chain disruptions on business activities. Unfortunately, the real-life impacts of digital technology deployment in mitigating supply chain disruptions and enhancing resilience have not been fully evaluated, and it is unclear which digital technology deployment strategy had the greatest effect on firms' operations. This research seeks to fill this gap using data from the annual reports of 123 Chinese automotive manufacturers during the COVID-19 crisis. We focus on two dimensions of digital technology deployment: amount and category. Metrics describing financial and operational performance are used to estimate firms' overall performance. Additionally, this research presents econometric models to assess the effects of digital technology deployment from the two aforementioned dimensions. We found that the deployment of digital technology assets could mitigate negative effects on firms' performance during COVID-19 crisis, albeit with a time lag. Different categories of digital technology deployment, however, had different effects on firms' financial and operational performance. Digital front-end technologies were more efficient in improving the financial performance of the automotive firms. Meanwhile, digital base technologies were more impactful on the firms’ operational performance. This research contributes to the body of research on digital SCM and supply chain risk management by examining the effect of digital technologies from a dynamic capability perspective.

This response to Leuschner et al. (2023) expands upon their conceptualisation of supply chain finance (SCF), arguing for a more strategic perspective. It contends that SCF risks being relegated to an operational role within treasury departments, thus limiting its potential. This response proposes a redefined ideal type for SCF that transcends tactical leverages for shareholder value optimisation, positioning SCF as a key driver for systemic change. The formulation of this new ideal type revolves around three core dimensions: micro-foundations, institutions, and corporate purpose. Micro-foundations require a deeper understanding of credit ratings across supply chains and an incorporation of broader literature, particularly concerning innovative programmes such as PUMA's sustainable SCF. Institutional aspects involve acknowledging and integrating the impact of entities such as rating agencies and governmental bodies on SCF practices. Lastly, aligning SCF with corporate purposes beyond profit maximisation and as a catalyst for systemic change is proposed. This re-conceptualisation aims at revitalise SCF as a strategic tool capable of addressing broader societal challenges and, ultimately, redefining its role in supply chain management.

Supply chain disruptions have a well-documented detrimental impact on firm performance, and recent crises have reaffirmed this effect. While the relationship between a supplier's overall performance and the frequency and duration of supply chain disruptions is often suggested, it lacks substantial empirical evidence. We conducted three comprehensive empirical analyses using panel data involving 352 suppliers to investigate the relationship between supplier performance and supply chain disruptions. Our findings indicate a negative correlation between supplier performance and the frequency and duration of disruptions, that is, poorly performing suppliers are associated with more frequent and longer disruptions. Furthermore, disruption intensity (disruption frequency × disruption duration) exacerbates the negative impact on performance. We find that disruptions have a milder negative performance effect when they emanate from suppliers that have a history as “good performers” compared to “poor performers.” A supplementary analysis shows that disruptions notably affect supplier quality. This study bears significance for practitioners and contributes to the literature on supplier resilience. Our analyses highlight that supplier performance is not only an important predictor for the occurrence of supply chain disruptions but also mitigates (i.e., moderates) the negative effects in case they occur.

This paper focuses on the membership aspect of collaborative purchasing by examining the factors related to an organization's decision to change its affiliation with group purchasing organizations (GPOs), the most commonly practiced organizational form of collaborative purchasing. Specifically, this paper empirically investigates the relationships among environmental conditions (i.e., market competition), organizational conditions (i.e., analytics advantage and collaborative linkage), and GPO change, building on strategic change and resource perspectives. Our results reveal that environmental and organizational conditions relate to the change in GPO membership and interactively affect its propensity. This study brings the membership aspect of collaborative purchasing to the forefront as a strategic decision area in the context of strategic purchasing. Given the lack of empirical research addressing GPO membership change, this study enhances our understanding of the nature of the membership aspect of collaborative purchasing. This paper also offers insights into strategic procurement decisions, as manifested in the change in GPO memberships.

The accurate understanding and measurement of circularity in purchasing and supply management is crucial for organisations aiming to enhance sustainability, reduce costs, and comply with regulations. However, existing circular economy indicators do not account for all circularity dimensions (i.e., C₁-monetary, C₂-energy and environment, C₃-material, C₄-temporal and C₅-efficiency) and neglect key actors (i.e., collectors, recyclers, manufacturers, users) in the circular supply chain. Consequently, this results in biased decision-making when selecting supply chain partners, hindering the circular economy's progress. This study investigates the effectiveness of circular economy indicators and their constituent circular economy items at the circular supply chain level to better evaluate circular economy accomplishments. Out of the 63 circular economy indicators and 23 circular economy items identified, only three evaluate all five circularity dimensions, while nearly 40 percent fail to consider critical actors within the circular supply chain. Drawing on stakeholder theory, this study proposes a framework for developing an effective circular economy indicator. The proposed framework is validated through a hybrid approach, beginning with the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process to ascertain the weights of circular economy items, followed by the fuzzy technique of order preference similarity to the ideal solution to rank recycling alternatives using the determined weights, and culminating with the linear programming to optimise the circularity based on the established rankings. This research emphasises the importance of covering all circularity dimensions and targeting all circular supply chain actors in aligning the goals of different entities with the broader objectives of the circular economy. It is the first study to provide guidance on developing circular economy indicators and evaluating circular economy performance from a circular supply chain perspective, serving as a solid foundation to achieve circular economy agendas. It affords purchasing and supply practitioners the opportunity to augment decision-making processes, optimise sustainability efforts, and bolster supply chain regulatory adherence and governance.

The integration of circularity into various functions, including procurement, is essential and is embraced by organizations for sustainable and profitable operations. Existing studies have explored circular procurement (CP) and its influencing factors. However, existing literature calls for a deeper examination of these factors to provide a smooth implementation guide for practitioners and to foster a comprehensive understanding of cause-and-effect relationships for future research by scholars. As a result, this study aims to investigate the interrelationship between CP barriers. Firstly, this study explores barriers through a thorough review of relevant literature with input from academic and industrial experts. Utilizing a classical triple-level framework, the work identifies and categorizes 21 barriers. Secondly, the study employs interpretive structural modeling (ISM) to examine the contextual relationships among the barriers. Thirdly, these barriers are classified into different categories using the MICMAC technique, based on their driving and dependence power. The research findings develop a hierarchical model of barriers, offering insights into which barriers are the most crucial and need immediate attention and how different barriers could influence each other. The study's unique contributions lie in its identification of hierarchical relationships between barriers and its categorization (independent, linkage, and dependent), contributing to tailored strategies for effective CP implementation.

In recent years, the circular economy (CE) has drawn considerable attention from both academia and industry alike, with public procurement emerging as a widely adopted public policy tool for achieving economic goals and sustainable social development. However, the impact of public procurement on firms’ adoption of the CE and the mechanism affecting this relation are not fully understood. By analyzing a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2020 based on logit regression models, we find that supplier firms engaging in public procurement are more likely to adopt CE practices. In addition, we find that an increase in firms’ market power weakens the positive effect of public procurement on CE adoption, whereas government attention and institutional ownership strengthen this effect. Furthermore, we distinguish between local governments and the Chinese central government as buyers and find that local governments play a more significant role in promoting CE adoption than the central government. This study provides the first empirical evidence of the relation between public procurement and CE adoption and identifies the mechanism by which public procurement affects CE adoption.