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Outsourcing of services has been receiving increasing attention in management literature and praxis. It is considered that greatest attention has been given to the enhanced efficiency of transaction costs through outsourcing. In contrast, this paper explores what is being outsourced, the drivers for outsourcing and the IT commodification influence on outsourcing. Particular attention is given to examining supplier‐client relationships and the consequently new emerging outsourcing arrangements and organisational forms. The benefits and costs of outsourcing and client satisfaction are discussed as well as outsourcing in the public sector. The paper highlights that a fundamental paradigm shift is underway from strictly provider/supplier relationships to an emerging array of partner based relationships comparable with the Japanese kieretsu relationship model. The paper concludes by identifying areas for further research for increasing understanding of the paradigm shift that is highlighted.

Over the past decades, analyses of the functioning of professional sport leagues have been done from various angles: economic, financial and sociological; in some cases, comparisons were made between North-American and European leagues. The purpose of this paper is to look at this reality from a different angle, i.e. human capital management, by showing how different the models from both continents are.

Based on an identification of the major elements associated to human capital management in professional sport leagues in North America and Europe, this paper compares competitive and coopetitive strategies using an original framework based on consortium sourcing and pooling dimensions.

The paper underlines the benefits that North-American professional sport leagues get from acquiring players using a consortium sourcing perspective (coopetition). In Europe, the most powerful clubs use their financial resources to get the best players; as a result, it is always the same clubs with get the best results (competition). In the long run, the European approach might result in less attractiveness to TV viewers, and less revenues for TV networks.

This paper helps to understand the differences between professional sport leagues in North America and Europe; it also discusses the risk associated to the adoption, without any adjustment in the human capital management, in Europe of the North-American model based on a coopetitive perspective. This dimension is seldom mentioned in articles dealing with professional sport leagues.

Many research studies in operations management (OM) and strategic management (SM) investigate how different kinds of firm decisions regarding business relationships can positively affect a firm's operations performance, resource endowment, and competitive position. Very few studies exist, however, that have attempted to illuminate the actual behaviors of managers when making strategic decisions about their intercompany relationships; rather, most existing studies focus on normative theory. The purpose of this paper is to explore linkages between the “set” of strategic objectives that managers are willing to pursue, the “set” of networking decisions they make, and the “set” of business agreements they sign.

In order to investigate and explore actual managerial behaviors with respect to networking strategy, the study adopts a field research approach based on multiple case studies. Data were collected on 13 business agreements from three manufacturing firms in the mechatronics industry in Italy. Within‐case and cross‐case analyses are used for theory‐building purposes.

The empirical data allow identification four different archetypes of networking strategy. The archetypes capture different connections between the “set” of strategic objectives that managers are willing to pursue, the “set” of networking decisions that they consider, and the “set” of strategic agreements that they actually adopt. Specifically, the identified archetypes are named multi‐alignment, multi‐agreement (diversification), multi‐objective, and mono‐alignment (focus), and these are related to different association multiplicities among objectives, decisions, and agreements. The implications related to these archetypes are three‐fold. First, the multi‐alignment archetype suggests a focus not just on one kind of agreement, but also on the firm's overall portfolio of agreements, in order to facilitate understanding of how different kinds of agreements and networking decisions can play a complementary role in achieving a firm's predetermined business objective/s. Second, the multi‐agreement (diversification) archetype suggests that managers can minimize the risk of losing the potentiality of network collaboration by undertaking different kinds of agreements for the same strategic objective. Third, the mono‐alignment (focus) and multi‐objective archetypes suggest that just one agreement can potentially pursue one or multiple strategic objectives, and thus can allow managers to minimize the cost of managing several networking relationships.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of linkages between objectives, decisions and networking agreements. Unlike most of the existing papers in OM and SM, however, it does not specifically focus on: vertical or horizontal relationships; operations performance (positioning school) or resource endowment (resource‐based view) strategic objectives; or any specific kind of agreement contract (outsourcing, alliance, joint venture, etc.). This paper presents four different networking strategy archetypes that represent different ways of matching a “set” of networking decisions, strategic objectives and business agreements. These are not related to either vertical or horizontal relationships, operations performance or resource endowment objectives, or any specific contract agreement form.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a field-level examination of the adoption of sustainable procurement in social housing. It explores the role of regulation and procurement consortia in sustainable procurement.

The study employs a case study of the UK social housing sector and uses an online survey (n=116) of UK Housing Associations. Factor analysis identifies three parsimonious dimensions of sustainable procurement. Attitudinal data are analysed to explore the field-level adoption of sustainable procurement and the role of consortia.

The results delineate sustainable procurement activities into three factors; direction setting, supplier-centric assurance and local socially oriented supply. High yet sup-optimal levels of sustainable procurement activity are revealed. Prevailing attitudes identify positive commitments to sustainable procurement at individual, organisational and sector levels. The value of network collaboration is identified. Tenants as critical stakeholders do not prioritise sustainable procurement creating challenge for inclusivity. Regulators are seen to a have low level of sustainable procurement knowledge and procurement consortia a high perceived knowledge.

Results provide insight into the effect of sustainable procurement policy, the role of regulators and network structures and consortia, raising issues around legitimacy, coopetition, stakeholder engagement, performance measurement, and functional/sectoral maturity.

The identification of the potential exclusion of tenants in sustainability debates is particularly significant to deliver social value.

The relative newness of the social housing sector and its quasi-public sector status provides an original contribution to the consortia and sustainable procurement literatures.

Multiple stages of procurement for a product in a supply chain (SC) altogether form a “multi-Tier” supply network. The purpose of this paper is to develop and verify a systematic solution approach to ascertain the realistic cost advantage of a coordinated centralized sourcing strategy as compared to an isolated decentralized sourcing strategy for a multi-tier supply network under demand uncertainty.

The proposed systematic solution approach consists of seven steps to compare and contrast the cost advantage of a centralized coordinated sourcing strategy over a decentralized stage-wise sourcing strategy for a multi-tier supply network. A real-life automotive industry case analysis of two distinct products provides sufficient empirical evidence on the expected cost advantage of centralized coordinated sourcing strategy under demand uncertainty.

The case analysis affirms the practicability of the proposed seven-step solution approach to determine the realistic cost advantage of coordinated sourcing.

The scope of this research is restricted to a single product and two-tier supply network analysis. This research work also considers a restrictive assumption of negligible coordination cost.

The suitability of the proposed solution approach is verified using real-life case examples. This research provides theoretical insights and factual evidence to SC practitioners, so as to adopt a centralized sourcing strategy in a varied manufacturing environment.

There is no evidence of a systematic step-by-step solution approach to determine the cost advantage of a coordinated sourcing strategy over an isolated decentralized sourcing strategy for a multi-tier supply network under demand uncertainty.

This paper demonstrates, using empirical cases from the National Health Services (NHS), how existing practices in demand specification, procurement and supply management fail to address the significant problems caused by the misalignment of demand and supply. When examining internal demand management a number of problems arise including: product overspecification, premature establishment of design and specification, frequent changes in specification, poor demand information, fragmentation of spend, maverick buying, inter-departmental power and politics, and the risk-averse nature and culture of the organisation. It is argued that unless these problems are addressed and eliminated the NHS will not be in a position to select the most appropriate reactive or proactive approach from the range of sourcing options available. An improvement path that NHS Trusts might follow to achieve more efficient and effective procurement and supply management is outlined.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of cooperative purchasing on buyers’ purchasing power. Purchasing in the humanitarian sector has traditionally been characterized by a low level of coordination due to inter-agency competition for funding, diverging mandates and other organizational differences. Relationships with commercial suppliers have also remained arm's-length and often dormant due to high levels of uncertainty and strict public procurement rules and regulations. However, recent pushes for increased efficiency and effectiveness are driving humanitarian agencies toward cooperative purchasing – a purchasing strategy that is claimed to be highly beneficial for members of the purchasing consortium not least for its ability to increase buyers’ purchasing power. In reality, the effectiveness of the strategy in increasing purchasing power is unclear.

The authors study a single case of several humanitarian organizations aiming to increase their leverage in buying freight forwarding services by joining forces.

Following several incidents during the process, the cooperative purchasing initiative did not contribute to increased power in the case. It was found that in addition to increased volumes, the effect of the strategy on other sources of power such as interconnections is also of importance.

The research is limited to the boundaries of a single case study including the perceptive view of respondents interviewed.

The findings of the study provide insights for organizations aiming to practice cooperative purchasing.

The findings of the study provide insights for organizations aiming to practice cooperative purchasing.

Small councils may not have access to professional procurement resources – one potential solution is to create a procurement shared service with another council. The purpose of this paper is to focus on evidence of the emergence and existence of inter‐organisational procurement shared services and its benefits; a structural approach significantly different from the intra‐organisational centralised/decentralised organisational models and the use of consortia.

Case studies, making use of stakeholder, semi‐structured interviews, were used to probe the experience of six English procurement shared‐services covering 15 councils.

The findings demonstrate evidence of that some smaller councils are benefiting from collaborating in inter‐organisational procurement shared service. The collaborations were engaged in strategic procurement initiatives which would not have otherwise been possible through the use of consortia. However, there was an absence, within the cases, of formal business cases and strategy.

The paper provides evidence that procurement shared services can be inter‐organisational delivering the benefits of intra‐organisational “hard core/soft core” procurement structures and inter‐organisational consortia. The paper also suggests that the benefits gained from procurement shared services have more akin to inter‐organisational collaboration than intra‐organisational shared services. This research is limited in that it only relates to the experience of a purposive sample of small councils that had already decided to pursue a procurement shared service. The research limitations also include the absence of a political perspective.

A procurement shared service appears a viable structural option for smaller councils, whether they have, or have not currently, access to a procurement professional. The research highlights the need to adopt an incremental approach and also sets out suggestions for a strategic approach to shared services procurement strategy.

There is an absence of literature on delivering procurement as a shared service, and shared services in general – in that respect this paper represents research into a new emerging procurement structural model, not previously reported.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how buyers and the vendors pursue alignment in collaborative purchasing (CP) of complex medical technologies.

Through a literature review in CP, the paper identify factors for shareholder alignment (i.e. aligning the needs of the buyers within the purchasing group) and customer alignment (i.e. aligning buyers’ needs with the vendors offering strategies) and investigate how they manifest in the case of CP of complex technology in the Danish National Healthcare System.

Shareholder alignment requires appropriate management of the relationships, expertise and guidance in simplifying procedures and effective management of the purchasing group. Customer alignment is facilitated by buyers’ understating of the vendor’s design options, which are moderated by the vendor’s design strategies.

The findings and generalizations from a single case study are limited to the complexity of the purchased technology and the specific cultural context. However the paper represents the first explorative study that poses the attention on the relevance of shareholder and customer alignment in CP.

The study can offer hospitals, vendors, governmental and regional institutions a better understanding about the alignment mechanisms for successful implementation of CP and how to avoid pitfalls.

Literature on CP is scarce as there are virtually no contributions that debate the key elements and tradeoffs that need to be considered for strategic alignment. The study addresses this gap.

This paper aims to consider the problem of public procurement's contribution in moving from the current global economic downturn and accelerating the economic recovery.

A literature review is used to establish perceived local government procurement best practice. Secondary research is then drawn upon to establish local government procurement's response to the current economic recession. The paper is set within the context of English local government. The paper's contribution is in highlighting that perceived best public procurement practice may well, in the short‐term, be inappropriate and perhaps delay economic recovery. Suggestions for more radical short‐term procurement strategic interventions are set out and justified as accelerating the economic recovery. The suggestions are considered appropriate, not only for the current crisis, but also for future economic downturns or indeed any country facing such a situation.

The analysis suggests that English local government procurement strategy generally remains unaltered from that adopted prior to the economic recession. It is then argued that current best practice may well hinder an economic recovery and a short‐term shift in procurement strategy is required.

The economic recession is a current phenomenon and the secondary research could well suffer from self‐selection bias, nevertheless the review of current policy documents suggests that a short‐term shift in procurement strategy is justified.

The paper identifies the weaknesses in current procurement strategy prior to setting out a short‐term alternative procurement strategy that could help public procurement managers accelerate a viable economic recovery.

The current global economic downturn represents a major challenge to public sector organisations, yet there remains an assumption that English local government procurement strategy developed during a period of economic boom, is appropriate during the recession. This paper challenges that assumption and sets out a procurement strategy that could accelerate economic recovery. The strategy advocated can be tested and the lessons learnt utilised in other countries or during future periods of economic downturn.