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The purpose of this paper is to develop a purchasing-logistics integration (PLI) conceptualization along two dimensions: mutual responsibility and integrative efforts. This conceptualization is then tested as to whether it provides any insights for supplier performance.

Information-Processing Theory is used to posit hypotheses linking the dimensions of PLI with various measures of supplier performance. Hypotheses are then tested with a dyadic data set of purchasing and logistics managers, using multiple regression methods.

Purchasing managers found mutual responsibility to positively influence supplier delivery speed, whereas logistics managers found it to positively influence supplier price performance. Generally speaking, purchasing managers perceived a stronger linkage between formal integrative efforts (liaison roles and joint reward systems) and supplier performance, whereas logistics managers perceived this linkage to be stronger for informal integrative efforts such as information exchange and collaboration.

Study results are cross-sectional in nature and consist of three major industry groupings. The dyadic data were analyzed separately to avoid significant data loss.

Supply chain managers will find the areas where purchasing and logistics managers overlap in their perceptions (as well as where they differ) useful. In addition, an understanding of how PLI influences supplier performance should help improve organizational effectiveness.

PLI is a highly important, yet understudied, internal connection. This study provides a useful framework in helping academics and practitioners better understand this crucial internal connection, and how it relates to the performance extracted from suppliers.

This study aims to examine the connection between strategy‐linked outsourcing goals and measures of outsourcing performance. The strategies of growth, cost, and differentiation (core competence) are examined in terms of their relationship with goal achievement and cost performance measures.

Regression analysis and ANOVA were applied to survey data collected from 165 purchasing executives.

Findings support a positive relationship between goal intensity for a single strategy and achievement of goals related to that strategy. Findings also suggest that firms with high commitment to growth and cost strategies tend to achieve cost‐related performance at higher levels than firms with a lower commitment to same. Finally, the findings also suggest that firms pursuing a single or dominant strategy achieve lower levels of cost saving performance, as compared with firms pursuing a “balanced” approach that emphasizes two or three different strategies in roughly equal measure.

This study relies on very limited performance variables, mainly cost reduction. Additional variables that addressed growth and core competence would provide additional insight on the link between outsourcing and performance.

Goal intensity is positively related to higher performance on desired outsourcing outcomes. Firms demonstrated greater success in their ability to pursue multiple outsourcing strategies over firms pursuing a single strategy.

The link between strategy and outsourcing performance had not been empirically established.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and validate two new constructs with the potential to sharpen our understanding of how and why firms integrate their internal supply chains and assess the governance structure of their supply chains. The first construct, organizational alignment (OA), is a reflective scale measuring the extent to which upper management attempts to foster integration between internal supply chain functions. The second, supply chain governance structure (SCGS), is a formative index, and is a first attempt at developing a measurement instrument to assess SCGS along multiple dimensions.

Following a literature review, measures of OA and SCGS are conceptualized. These instruments are used to collect data, after which they are refined and validated through parallel scale development (OA) and index construction (SCGS) processes.

OA shows acceptable content and construct validity, and SCGS shows acceptable results for content and item specification, as well as multicollinearity.

OA and SCGS may provide some insight into how to promote better internal supply chain integration within the firm, and may allow for an assessment of the governance structure of the firm's supply chain. In different industries and at different times, this knowledge may prove useful in supply chain design and supply base optimization decisions.

These scales have considerable applicability in logistics and supply chain management research. Together, they represent initial attempts to assess upper management influence on internal supply chain alignment (OA), and to assess the governance structure of a firm's supply chain.