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Discusses supply chain management practices, with emphasis on purchasing, in Botswana (a developing country). Focuses on problems facing business operations and how to improve the situation. Presents the views of purchasing personnel from public and private organizations and of students taking purchasing and supply chain management courses. Discovers that purchasing has not been recognized as a profession, which has led to lack of motivation in purchasing sections’ personnel. Further, purchasing policies on external relationships and image are non‐existent in most organizations. Claims that managers need to change their thinking about the purchasing and supply function – to see it as strategic and not clerical; and purchasing and supplies personnel require training in supply chain management.

The authors empirically examine purchasing strategy typologies based on strategic intent (i.e. competitive priorities) and practices used to achieve these priorities. The authors further investigate the implementation conditions of such strategies based on perceived uncertainty and strategic purchasing.

The authors utilize case study data from 11 international service and manufacturing firms with global supply chains. Each company was profiled based on the level of perceived environmental uncertainty, the characteristics of strategic purchasing, the use of relevant purchasing practices and its ability to create value through purchasing.

The study findings show that four purchasing strategy types exist: Purchasing Rationalization, Supply Base Optimization, Purchasing as a Service and World-Class Supply Base Management. Lower levels of perceived environmental uncertainty favor the adoption of rationalization strategies (i.e. Purchasing Rationalization and Supply Base Optimization), while increased uncertainty leads companies to switch to relationship-focused strategies (i.e. Purchasing as a Service and World-Class Supply Base Management). Further, that specific components of strategic purchasing (i.e. strategic planning, maturity, status and report level) enable the successful implementation of different strategy types.

This research contributes to the existing literature by outlining the different types of purchasing strategies and the external and internal factors that need to be considered to achieve strategic alignment and value creation in purchasing, and by classifying purchasing strategy types at the functional level based on empirical evidence.

Research on purchasing managers and their skills requirements supports the training and education of purchasing professionals. This paper offers an in-depth analytical review of the purchasing skills reported in the supply chain management (SCM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the most important skills and factors that influence these skills.

This paper employs a systematic literature review methodology. Two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, are searched for relevant articles. The selected journal articles are used as sources to obtain a view not only on the relevant purchasing and supply management (P/SM) skills, but also on factors that emphasize certain P/SM skills. This paper also summarizes the ten skills ranked as most important (often described as the “top ten”) among the sample articles.

The paper highlights the essential skills for purchasing professionals, verified both by their frequent appearances in rankings and by citation frequency in the literature. Generic managerial skills, such as communication, cost analysis, teamwork, problem-solving, negotiation, influencing, and persuasion, as well as information technology skills, received the most attention in the literature and rankings of the “top ten” P/SM skills. This paper provides a refined categorization of purchasing skills, which have merged recently with other discussed skills, such as political and entrepreneurial ones, into this categorization. This paper identifies factors that affect purchasing managers’ skills requirements.

This paper presents a structured overview of 57 peer-reviewed articles from high-quality journals about purchasing skills. The review contributes to the purchasing skills literature by showing the most relevant skills and the factors that influence skills requirements. These factors also provide arenas for further research related to purchasing skills.

This Symposium reports on the opportunities available to those who take the initiative to introduce materials management approaches. It examines both the anticipate rates of change and development of the underlying factors as well as the organisational implications they entail. A full bibliography of recent literature is provided. The predicted developments are derived from the findings of a Delphi Study in association with the Institute of Purchasing and Supply conducted by the author in 1976.

Many studies claim that the implementation of quality management practices and specific information systems can help organizations to improve performance. The objective of this article is to provide insights into current quality management and information systems theory and practice in the purchasing function and their impact on purchasing performance.

Hypotheses derived from the key features of quality management practices in purchasing (QMPP) and related information systems (IS) practices presented by previous authors are tested using Structural Equation Modelling through field research on a sample of 306 manufacturing companies in Spain.

Findings from this study indicate that there is significant evidence to support the hypothesized model in which QMPP has a direct impact on related IS practices and purchasing performance, as well as an indirect impact on purchasing performance mediated through IS.

Use of a single key informant is a possible limitation as opposed to information directly obtained from actual suppliers and internal customers. Also a more stringent test of the relationship between QMPP, IS and purchasing performance requires a more protracted time‐span rather than a singlular point in time. Finally, future research could include SRM, ERP, MRP, etc. in the purchasing department

A survey of QMPP and IS practices in manufacturing suggests how firms and other organisations should focus their investments to improve purchasing performance.

While many researchers have studied information systems and total quality management operations strategies individually, the relationship between the adoption of quality management practices in purchasing and purchasing‐related information systems and QMPP's effect on purchasing performance has not yet been analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of uncertainty in purchasing and supply management, and the changes of this role over time.

The paper is based on a literature review of the development of purchasing and supply management over time and how these issues have been related to uncertainty and dependence. This examination also required analysis of the impact of other concepts from behavioral sciences: interdependence, power and control.

The paper shows that the relationship between purchasing management and uncertainty has changed substantially over time. Traditionally, uncertainty was avoided, while firms today are engaged in efforts of handling the consequences of uncertainty. This modification affected the features of buyer-supplier relationships, as well as the perspectives and the exploitation of power, control and dependence.

The paper demonstrates both positive and negative consequences of uncertainty, depending on the approach applied in purchasing. Moreover, the analysis shows that uncertainty cannot be avoided. Modifications of purchasing management will reduce certain types of uncertainty. But the same modification also results in increases of other forms of uncertainty.

The paper seeks to examine the changing landscape of supply chain management, marketing channels of distribution, logistics and purchasing.

The authors examine and take stock of the changing nature and landscape surrounding the related disciplines of supply chain management, marketing channels of distribution, logistics and purchasing. This examination highlights the considerable evolution and significant advances occurring within and between these disciplines.

The authors find that this new landscape provides both opportunities and challenges for future scholarship and practice in these related disciplines.

The examination and findings should be of value to those attempting to understand the evolving nature and interrelationship of these fields, and those who currently practise within them.

Traces the development of purchasing from a materials acquisition function to supply chain management. The paradigm shifts to recognising every purchase is also a sale and that purchasing is more than buying. Contemporary purchasing incorporates strategic procurement – aligning suppliers’ performance with purchasers’ business strategies, supplier‐base management – managing the structure and culture of supplier relationship, and lean supply organisation – energising internal and external organisational teams through flexible structures and responsive information systems. Tasks for purchasing and supply chain management can be differentiated at the operational, administrative and entrepreneurial levels. An incremental approach is recommended to changing practices and policies by encouraging organisational learning, teamwork and dissemination of experience with supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of nine hypotheses linking four purchasing and supply management (PSM) practices directly to purchasing performance and indirectly to financial performance.

The authors collected data in a global cross‐industry survey of 148 companies, combining primary interview and survey data with secondary data on firm performance, in order to minimize the impact of common method variance.

Support was found for eight of the nine hypotheses. In particular, a positive impact was found of cross‐functional integration and functional coordination on purchasing performance, and of purchasing performance on firm performance. Both talent management and performance management have a positive impact on cross‐functional integration and functional coordination. Talent management also has a direct impact on purchasing performance, in contrast to performance management.

The association of enhanced PSM maturity levels with financial performance metrics collected from secondary data sources provides robust empirical support for the stated but to this point largely untested positive impact of PSMmaturity on the firm's competitive position.

The topic of this research focuses on firm's perceived implementation of quality management practices in the purchasing function. More specifically, this paper describes an exploratory research effort to analyze and classify quality management practices in purchasing and assesses the relationships of these practices with measurements of a firm purchasing's operational performance (POP), internal customer satisfaction and business performance. The results reported in this study are based on a field survey consisting of responses gathered from 306 purchasing managers within the Spanish manufacturing industry. The assessment of the relationships among quality management practices in purchasing, POP, internal customer satisfaction and business performance is carried out using bivariate correlation analysis.