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This study aims to analyze how startups organize their purchasing activities to improve operative excellence and become attractive customers.

The authors use a two-phase exploratory approach with semistructured interviews and a World Café. In total, 20 startup purchasers and suppliers participated. It is an international study with participants from eight countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA).

The authors find that startups organize the purchasing function in five ways: partial outsourcing, transactional-oriented, strategic only, outsourced purchasing and full department. Each type has advantages and disadvantages regarding operative excellence. The authors identify type-specific antecedents to operative excellence: forecasting, payment habits, ordering process, contact accessibility and quick decision-making.

The value of this paper is that it offers entrepreneurs a framework to organize startup purchasing activities, including outsourcing options. Furthermore, it provides theoretical contributions that expand the topic of purchasing and supply organization and operative excellence to the startup context.

The value of this paper is that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to explore purchasing organization and operative excellence in startups.

Consumer culture is promoting immediate gratification, and the rise of digital financial services is increasing the risk of indebtedness while debt reduces well-being and affects mental health. The authors assess the effects of consumer information provision, debt literacy, chronic debt and attitudes toward debt on the intent to purchase on credit.

An online survey including an experiment with a credit offer vignette was conducted in a representative sample of Estonia (n = 1204). Treatment conditions depicted either the total cost and duration of the credit agreement or the annual percentage rate.

Receiving modified information resulted in a 26 to 30 percentage points decrease in propensity to purchase on credit. Purchasing on credit was associated with attitudes towards credit and chronic debt, but not with debt literacy.

The findings reveal large effects of information provision and highlight the limited effects of debt literacy on credit decisions. Limitations may emerge from differences in financial regulation across countries.

The authors' results highlight the importance of applying behavioural insights in consumer credit information provision, both in the financial sector and policy. Testing the messages allows having evidence-based solutions that promote responsible purchasing on credit.

The findings call for changes in credit information provision requirements. Their effect is significantly larger compared to the literature, emphasizing the role of credit information provision in less regulated online markets.

The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and its extensions are often used to explain intentions to perform sustainable behaviours. Emotions can provide the impetus for action and should be considered in high-involvement situations, such as sustainable food purchase decisions. Therefore, the aim of this research work was to investigate whether the addition of different types of emotions (self-related, social and pro-active) to the TPB main constructs – attitude (ATT), subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) – improves the explanation of intention to make two sustainable food purchase choices: purchase Fairtrade (FT) products and purchase through solidarity purchasing groups (SPGs).

The present investigation was conducted by two studies using online questionnaires and focussing on purchasing FT food products (Study 1) and purchasing food through SPGs (Study 2). Stepwise regression models were run to explain the intention to purchase FT products (Study 1; N = 240) and the intention to purchase through SPGs (Study 2; N = 209).

Results show that emotions increase the predictive validity of the TPB model. The study also highlights the importance to distinguish between different types of emotions. Amongst those considered in both studies, only pro-active emotions play a significant role in predicting food purchasing intention. Results encourage further investigation of the role of emotions in TPB-based models for predicting sustainable food purchase choices.

The measurement of the three classical antecedents of the TPB model (ATT, SNs and PBC) performed by single items can be considered the main limitation of this work. In future research, instruments made up of more items measuring these three theoretical dimensions should be used. In addition, it would be important to conduct an analysis of the beliefs that determine ATTs, norms and perceived control.

Different from previous studies that considered emotions in extension of the TPB model to explain sustainable behaviours, the present work separately analysed the role of three different kinds of emotions (self-related, social and pro-active) in explaining sustainable food behaviours.

The promulgation of group purchasing organizations (GPOs) into the healthcare (HC) sector is an invaluable procurement strategy to manage the suppliers effectively. This study aims to identify and prioritize the factors of integrating GPOs into the HC sector on the perspectives of the developing countries such as India.

The factors are identified from current literature exploration, experts’ support and experience surveys. The factors are scrutinized and shortlisted using the Delphi technique and analysed further using the best-worst model method.

The findings of the study highlight the cost reduction, fair distribution of savings and healthcare supply chain (HCSC) data standardization among others to be the most prioritized drivers. The consulting services provided by GPOs including training and development as a result of high competitiveness in the HC market has been prioritized the least.

The study bears some important implications for decision and policymakers. The managers should consider factors, namely, cost reduction, fair distribution of savings and HCSC data standardization on a priority basis that acts as motivation for the HC providers to join the GPOs.

The study provides valuable insights for HC providers to participate in the GPOs for cost savings and enhance the performances.

The study draws primarily on social identity theory and conceptualizes perceived brand localness (PBL) as a signal of in-group membership to local consumers and investigates how it affects consumer trust and purchase intentions for foreign brands in developing countries in Asia. In addition, the authors examine boundary conditions for these hypothesized PBL effects.

Using consumer survey data from three countries in Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar), the authors empirically validate the positive effects of PBL on consumer trust and purchase intentions for foreign brands in developing countries.

The findings support the social identity theory conceptualization of PBL for foreign brands, in which it can create identification-based trust (Tanis and Postmes, 2005) and active ownership through a process of self-stereotyping (van Veelen et al., 2015).

The findings suggest that social identity theory can be a promising theoretical framework for conceptualizing PBL and gaining a deeper insight into its mechanization and how it impacts consumers.

This paper aims to investigate how online consumer reviews (OCRs), countdowns and self-control affect consumers' online impulse buying behavior in online group buying (OGB) and uncover the relationship between these factors.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, this research examines the effects of OCRs, countdowns and self-control on users' impulse purchases. First, the influence of emotions on impulse purchases in group purchasing is investigated. In addition, this study innovatively applies stress-coping theory to group buying research, with countdowns exerting temporal pressure on consumers and OCRs viewed as social pressure, to investigate in depth how countdowns and OCRs affect users' impulse purchase behavior. Finally, this study also surveys the moderating role of users' self-control in the impulse purchase process.

The results show that the perceived value of OCRs and positive emotions (PE) were positively correlated with impulsiveness (IMP) and the urge to buy impulsively (UBI), while negative emotions (NE) were negatively correlated with IMP. Countdowns (CD) had a positive effect on UBI. Self-control can indirectly affect users' impulse buying by negatively moderating the relationship between PE and UBI, PE and IMP and CD and UBI.

The research results can help group buying platforms and related participants understand the factors influencing users' impulse purchases in OGB and facilitate them to better design strategies to increase product sales.

Overcooking and overbuying are two main causes of food waste in households. Therefore, this study tests whether two interventions, aimed at cooking planning versus purchasing planning, can reduce food waste in households by using self-report direct measurements. Because measuring household food waste can impact how much food is wasted, the effects of the mere measurement of household food waste over time were assessed as well.

A sample of 80 households was distributed into three groups (control, purchasing planning and cooking planning) and their household food waste was weighed over a period of 166 days. After the first 91 days, behavioral interventions were delivered to purchasing planning and cooking planning groups. Repeated measures ANOVA, linear regression and a two-level mixed model were used for data analysis.

Results showed that the interventions were not effective in influencing the participants to reduce household food waste beyond the reduction in the control group. However, there is evidence of a mere measurement effect that caused household food waste reduction over time.

This study's experimental period is longer than most of the studies that tested behavioral interventions for household food waste reduction. This enabled the authors to assess the effects of repeated measurement and discover that measurement alone can bring behavioral change.

This article aims to investigate collaborative procurement as a sourcing strategy amongst competing small enterprises in an effort to reduce their material supply costs through increased efficiencies, bargaining power and economies of scale.

A case study approach is applied to a network of breweries that are regionally clustered. Interview data from producers, suppliers and industry experts is inductively interpreted to understand the viability, organisational impact and benefits/limitations of joint procurement activities.

The craft brewing industry follows a market place strategy of differentiation to achieve competitive advantage. This has supply chain implications that promote raw material diversity, which is in conflict with standardisation – a necessary factor for collective buying. Competition impacts information sharing and governance mechanism, while the structural factors of size asymmetry along and across the supply chain influence returns. These issues impact the potential economic benefits of collaborative procurement.

The research propositions have been developed in a specific industry but are generalisable to other companies with a differentiation strategy, especially in the consumer packaged goods sector.

Enabling conditions and constraints are captured in a framework and capability matrix, which can be used by practitioners to assess industry and product feasibility for collaborative procurement.

Previous studies of collaborative procurement have been in the public sector amongst large organisations. This work focusses on coopetition in the context of small businesses to identify the viability and cost-benefit of this strategy.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), driven by the downstream buyers' power, transfers sustainability responsibilities to the upstream supplier. In contrast to the heavily-focused buyers' perspective in the literature, the authors investigate how this buyer-driven SSCM influences suppliers' performance, using the measure of stock market reaction.

Grounded by the resource dependence theory (RDT), the authors empirically analyze the power effect on suppliers. Event study methodology and regression analysis are used, based on a sample of 1977 paired supplier observations from 1990 to 2016.

The result suggests that although a negative stock market reaction for suppliers in SSCM exists, the effect is less negative at a high level of buyer and supplier dependence. For the investigation of the “consolidated SSCM initiative,” where buyers acquire exogenous power by collaboratively managing SSCM with their peers, the authors uncover that the negative impact of this consolidated SSCM initiative can be mitigated by the high interdependence that generates relational norms in the dyads.

The authors focus on dyadic relationships. Future research can use the study's findings to study the SSCM diffusion to lower-tier suppliers.

This paper has good managerial implications for both suppliers and buyers. The authors propose dependence-based strategies for supplier managers to reduce uncertainty in SSCM. Moreover, buyer managers can use the study's findings to strengthen suppliers' commitment.

The novelty of examining the suppliers' perspective contributes to exploring the supply chain impact of SSCM. The authors extend RDT and show that high dependence is not necessarily detrimental to suppliers in this buyer-driven SSCM context. The interesting finding of interdependence in the context of the consolidated SSCM initiative brings new insights that relational norms constrain the leverage of power in the dyads and are beneficial to the power-disadvantageous suppliers.

This study aims to compare the expectations of non-collaborating professionals and the actual opinions of collaborating professionals regarding success factors of horizontal logistics collaboration (HLC) and investigates the reasons behind the observed differences.

This study employs a mixed-method approach. First, a survey is conducted to collect data from two samples representing collaborating and non-collaborating industry professionals. Second, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to compare the measurement models from the two samples and identify their similarities and differences. Third, a Delphi study is conducted to identify factors limiting collaborative behavior.

The results show that collaborating professionals exhibit lower levels of joint relationship efforts and trust than expected. This is primarily due to inadequate information sharing, poor collaboration formalization and the absence of a clear costs and benefits allocation mechanism.

The findings indicate that, in HLC, managers should give high importance to facilitating timely and complete information exchange, putting in place an acceptable costs/benefits allocation mechanism, formalizing the collaboration and prioritizing integrity over competency when selecting partners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that shows the existence of differences between industry professionals' pre-collaboration expectations and the actual experiences in HLC. This is also the first study that points to the exact HLC enablers that fail in practice and the barriers responsible for it.