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Since 1973–74, the beginning of the so‐called resources crunch, there has been an increased emphasis upon the role of the procurement function in strategic corporate planning and management. The role of procurement has begun significant change in a number of companies, yet remains in basically an operational mode in others. However, strategic management has often been “borne” out of situational crises imposed by changing environmental factors, rather than as a result of recognition of the strategic potential which management has. In essence, changes often come through reaction to problems, rather than through positive recognition and implementation of strategic management as an initiative itself. This has been particularly true of procurement.

Competency frameworks can support public procurement capacity development and performance. However, literature on connecting professionalisation with national procurement contexts is limited. This paper aims to explain and conceptualise recent Romanian experience with developing bespoke competency frameworks at national level for public procurement that reflect the features of the Romanian public procurement system. The approach used could guide in broad-brush, mutatis mutandis, other (national) public procurement systems with comparable features, mainly those seeking a shift from a rather administrative function of public procurement towards a strategic function.

This case study reflects on the methodology used for analysing the Romanian public procurement environment in EU context to develop bespoke professionalisation instruments, and on ways to integrate competency management approaches in Romanian public procurement culture. That methodological mix has been mainly qualitative and constructionist, within an applied research approach. It combined desk research with empirical research and included legal research in this context.

A principled, methodological and pragmatic approach tailored to the procurement environment in question is essential for developing competency frameworks capable to resonate to and address the specific practical needs of that procurement system.

Competency frameworks can uphold societal objectives through public procurement.

Using valuable insights into the development of the Romanian public procurement competency frameworks, the paper provides a conceptual framework for instilling competency management approaches to public procurement professional development where the latter is governed by a rather distinct, public administration, paradigm. This conceptual framework can guide other public procurement systems and stimulate further research.

This paper aims to highlight the evolving and articulated role of purchasing as a “mediator” between the company’s customers and suppliers, thus showing the opportunities connected to the evolution of purchasing from a business function to a strategic business for companies.

The paper reports on an in-depth analysis to investigate the case of IBM, which turned to the offering of services to transform itself from a pure product manufacturer into an outstanding service provider.

The paper shows that as the company’s business strategy becomes focused on client value, its success is strongly dependent on the development of a customer-driven procurement. The evolution of the role of procurement is accompanied by the growing integration between the company’s procurement and sales functions, as well as by the growing interconnection and interaction between the procurement function and the company’s clients.

The paper applies the conceptual approach and theoretical tools connected to servitization and procurement development processes to an innovative case study. The results make possible original suggestions both for literatures and management practices.

This study aims to provide a rich learning opportunity from COVID-19 crisis for making resilient supply chain by adopting new strategies for the procurement system.

The systematic literature review has been conducted from the year 2012 to 2022 with the objective of developing procurement system for resilient supply chain. Fifty-four research papers are selected for this study.

The study exhibits that procurement function makes a significant contribution in creating supply chain resilience in the time of COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 emergency has enforced companies to operate in new ways to face supply chain disruptions. The new strategies and actions appropriate for resilient procurement system have been identified.

This study is limited to the papers that were indexed in the Scopus database. It has also been limited to the procurement function and supply chain resilience.

This research highlights strategies for supply chain resilience to improve the business performance in COVID-19 or similar types of crisis.

The originality of this paper is to identify the strategies and new practices followed in procurement function to improve the supply chain resilience. This study suggests directions for future research on the integration of procurement and manufacturing for making resilience in the supply chain.

The high occurrence of procurement fraud requires the management of an enterprise, the risk manager of the enterprise and the internal auditor to address procurement fraud risks effectively within the enterprise risk management concept. The purpose of the article is to explain a procurement fraud risk management process which will serve as a comprehensive framework for enterprise risk managers and for internal auditors to limit the enterprise’s exposure to procurement fraud as far as possible. The study by Venter (2005) on which the article is based proposes a procurement fraud risk matrix which can be used to manage fraud risks within the procurement function efficiently. This matrix is based on the Committee of Supporting Organizations of the Treadway Commission’s (COSO’s) Enterprise Risk Management ‐Integrated Framework which is specifically applied to address the procurement fraud risk problem.

At all levels of government, inconsistencies exist regarding the terminology and the body of knowledge used to understand public procurement. Perspectives on what public procurement is, or should be, ranges from routine ordering to sophisticated analysis of government spending. Definitional ambiguities have hampered attempts to define the field and unify its focus. This exploratory article examines the implications of the muddled nature of public procurement that has led to debate and uncertainty about the proper role of public procurement practitioners. To address these limitations, three dimensions of all public procurement systems are identified, and a general definition is proposed for describing the field and its institutionalized practices.

While digitisation is a key driver of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0); organisations have different approaches to deal with this topic to get a clearer picture of the opportunities and challenges concerning the digital transformation. The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of digitisation on procurement and its role within the area of supply chain management. The research will also explore potential barriers to digitising procurement and supply chains and ways to overcome them. Finally, the significance of potential enabling technologies to the digitisation will also be examined.

A quantitative approached utilising an online survey was used to collect the primary data for this study. Data were collected from 414 participants directly involved with procurement or related business functions and work for different organisations in different industries. The survey included eight items about the impact of digitisation on organisational performance in the area of procurement and supply chains; ten items related to key barriers to digitisation of organisations and ways to overcome them; and seven items about enabling technologies to leverage procurement procedures and processes digitisation. All of these items utilised the Likert five-point level of agreement scale.

The findings indicate that digitisation of procurement process can yield several benefits including: supporting daily business and administrative tasks, supporting complex decision-making processes, procurement will become more focussed on strategic decisions and activities, procurement will become a strategic interface to support organisational efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability, and supporting the creation of new business models, products, and services. The authors were also able to confirm that there are barriers to digitising procurement process and supply chains and such barriers found in existing procedures, processes, capacities, and capabilities. Finally, the significance of a number of enabling technologies to the digitisation process was revealed.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind with participants located world-wide. Industry 4.0 as a topic had been explored within different business areas and functions but very limited research specifically explored potential impact, barriers, and enabling technologies of procurement 4.0. The results can be beneficial for organisations already implemented Industry 4.0 or planning to do so. The study can also benefit academic scholars interested in the researched topic, business professionals, organisations within different sectors, and any other party interested in understanding more the concept of procurement 4.0.

This paper aims to investigate the bridging role of first-tier suppliers in diffusing sustainability in supply networks and how this role is facilitated by the procurement function.

The paper is based on an embedded case study of two supply networks of a coffee beans roasting company. The embedded cases focus on coffee beans and packaging supply networks.

The findings reveal less than expected involvement of the focal company and its procurement function in sustainability implementation with first-tier suppliers. Instead, sustainability diffuses upstream to lower-tier suppliers but also downstream, against the tide, as a result of the various bridging roles performed by first-tier suppliers.

This paper provides two theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to the sustainable supply network management literature by providing rich insights on sustainability diffusion to lower-tier suppliers and the role of first-tier suppliers in this process. Second, the paper contributes to structural hole theory by revealing a typology of bridging roles that actors, such as suppliers, undertake in the sustainability context.

The paper provides managers with practical insights on how sustainability can be diffused in the supply network and the different roles that first-tier suppliers can play in this direction.

This paper shows that sustainability diffusion to lower-tier suppliers is possible in the absence of focal company procurement involvement when bridging roles are undertaken by first-tier suppliers and their procurement functions are involved in the implementation process. These bridging roles facilitate sustainability diffusion both upstream and downstream.

The purpose of this paper is to unpack tensions faced by procurement professionals as part of their triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability activities. The authors take an integrative perspective based on the procurement sustainability and organizational tensions literature, as well as stakeholder and institutional theory.

The authors use a multiple case study approach. Data are collected through multiple interviews and archival data from eight case companies in Australia.

The authors identify supply chain and company procurement sustainability tensions (PSTs) and explain their multi-level nature. The analysis also dissects the multi-stakeholder and multi-institutional environments where PSTs operate. The authors discuss such environments in terms of various temporal and spatial legitimacy contexts (LCs) that, through their assessment of institutional distance, can characterize the manifestation of PSTs.

The findings are instrumental for managers to make informed decisions when dealing with PSTs, and they pave the way for paradoxical leadership given the increasing importance of simultaneous development and balancing of TBL dimensions, as evidenced in this study.

This is one of the first studies to empirically investigate PSTs by drawing on an integrative approach to identify PSTs, and to discern various LCs that underpin stakeholder judgments of procurement’s TBL sustainability activities.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of procurement in identifying and managing the intra- and inter-organisational issues which impact supply chain resilience. Achieving resilience along the supply chain in today’s turbulent business environment requires efforts from both internal and external elements of the extended enterprise.

The systematic literature review was conducted between 2000 and 2013 with the objective being to answer the single research question proposed. To do so, a content analysis based on the literature was applied to 30 selected papers.

The study revealed that procurement activities do make a significant contribution to creating supply chain resilience. Emerging from the literature review, certain intra- and inter-organisational issues were identified that could impact supply chain resilience. Also the possible actions that procurement could take to enable the enhancement of supply chain resilience were identified.

This study is limited, in that it is exploratory and focuses only on the body of knowledge presented in two databases over the past 13 years. It has also been restricted to the procurement function and the consequent implications for the upstream supply chain.

The originality of this paper lies in the identification of intra- and inter-organisational issues from a procurement perspective specifically as they relate to improving supply chain resilience. This raises further questions on the role of procurement in creating supply chain resilience, which has not been well-explored in the current literature.