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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.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between legitimate and expert social power types of preadolescent children on the influence perception in their mothers’ purchasing behavior in Peruvian toy stores. The literature review takes into consideration the concepts of social power and the influence on family behavior to then focus on social power within family behavior with the purpose of mainly developing four hypotheses regarding purchasing behavior.

The methodology followed a non-experimental transversal correlational-causal design. A pilot sample size of 67 cases was used. The sample was based on an objective population of Peruvian mothers of families that live in northern Lima and that go to purchase toys to major shopping centers with their children aged 8-11 years.

The results show that the expert social power, as well as the legitimate social power, has a strong relationship. In addition, both social powers have an impact on the influence perception in purchasing child-mother, but not on the influence perception in purchasing mother-child. Moreover, the test of moderation of the expenditure level on toy purchases did not have an effect on the context that was studied.

The contribution shows that important changes are happening in the consumption behavior on the aspect of children influencing mothers, and that for Latin American contexts, the level of expenditure still does not crucially affect the causality demonstrated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how to align purchasing portfolio management with sourcing negotiation styles.

The authors have adopted two-step field tests: a case study; and a follow-up experimental test with 77 sourcing professionals.

The authors note that Kraljic Portfolio Matrix (KPM) provides a valuable guide for determining sourcing negotiation styles (i.e. competitive negotiation for leverage items, collaborative negotiation for strategic items and accommodative negotiation for bottleneck items). Interestingly, effective buyers adopt right negotiation styles based on the switching costs of changing suppliers, the dependence level on specific suppliers and the availability of alternative suppliers.

This study shows that aligning purchasing portfolio management with sourcing negotiation styles improves the chances of effective buying outcomes. Practical implications suggest that successful buyers move beyond interpreting generic predictions of the KPM framework and rather implement specific negotiation styles to maximize the potential benefits of purchasing portfolio management.

Reducing purchasing costs remains an ongoing concern for most organizations. The standard purchasing process that works well for large purchases, however, generates proportionately much higher overhead and administrative costs for small purchases leading to purchase delays, high error rate, and poor vendor participation. There is a need to develop separate purchasing processes for small and large purchases and evaluate underlying factors that affect such process transformation. This paper aims to analyze a successful purchasing process transformation conducted at a utility company for small purchases.

It uses a case study methodology to examine the transformation in detail and understand related issues such as benefits realization, resistance to change, and risk management involved in such transformation projects.

It compares original and transformed purchasing processes and identifies resultant benefits to the company, participating vendors, banks, and employees. It finds that a company receives many operational, informational, and accounting benefits in addition to purchasing cost savings.

It provides guidelines for similar restructuring for small purchases in other organizations.

The paper offers a generic business process model for small purchases and employs equity‐implementation model to explain the factors leading to the success in this purchasing process transformation and possibly other similar organizational transformations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a Humanitarian Purchasing Matrix to guide purchasing strategies for relief items in humanitarian operations.

The research synthesizes the structures of a Purchasing Portfolio Model and the characteristics of purchasing in humanitarian operations, validating them with academics and practitioners to develop a Humanitarian Purchasing Matrix. Then, based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process to classify the relief items in the matrix, an illustrative example is used as an empirical test for the proposed Humanitarian Purchasing Matrix.

The academic literature on purchasing in general and purchasing in humanitarian operations share some similarities in terms of “Importance of Purchasing” and “Complexity of Supply Market” dimensions. Moreover, the analysis of such criteria supports the definition of purchasing strategies for different relief items in humanitarian operations.

The Humanitarian Purchasing Matrix can be considered a tool/guide for professionals of humanitarian organizations in the adoption of purchasing strategies for the different relief items purchased for humanitarian operations.

Considering a scenario of a constant increase in the variety of relief items, the high purchasing volume and the pressure to more efficient relief operations, the research discusses the intersectionality of business purchasing models and the purchasing characteristics of humanitarian operations. Moreover, the research deliveries a tool/guide to the adoption of purchasing strategies that are composed of criteria observed in the literature and suggested by both humanitarian logistic academics and practitioners.

In recent years, concerns over environmental degradation and environmental sustainability have pushed governments to search for new ways to combat environmental problems. One such approach, which is gaining in popularity, is environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP). EPP attempts to address environmental challenges by taking advantage of government's vast purchasing power to create strong markets for environmentally friendly products and services. This article reviews governments’ experience with EPP in the United States. Specifically, the article describes the development of EPP in the federal government and reviews EPP activities at both the national and subnational levels. Next, the article presents several broad strategies that governments and procurement professionals can pursue in implementing EPP. The article concludes by identifying several challenges facing EPP.

The purpose of this research is to develop an understanding of how purchasing can become meaningfully involved in complex business-to-business service purchases.

A single in-depth case study method of an exemplar organization was applied to better understand the purchasing function’s role in adding to the value proposition in complex, non-traditional business-to-business service purchases.

Powerful allies or advocates can mediate purchasing involvement in service procurement. However, once the involvement is initiated, purchasing must make a positive contribution with respect to the specific needs and expectations of the budget owner to retain its influence.

This research extends institutional theory to show how powerful allies or advocates can mediate purchasing involvement in the complex services spend.

This study describes the potential impact of purchasing’s involvement in complex services spend and highlights the opportunities for purchasing managers to improve supplier management and drive out additional costs.

For the business practitioner, this research provides evidence regarding how individual functions can gain influence in the organization. A conceptual model describes the meaningful involvement of purchasing in complex business-to-business service purchases.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the key recommendations of early practitioners of purchasing management regarding supplier relationships and how policies and practices for obtaining lower unit prices affect buyer‐seller relationships.

The paper reviews the seven earliest books published on purchasing in the period 1915‐1940, and contrasts with common purchasing practices currently used by large corporations.

The logical, practical recommendations made by purchasing managers in the early 1900s differ markedly from the imprudent practices used by the managers of most large corporations today.

Research is limited by the inability to speak to deceased authors/purchasing practitioners cited to gain their venerable insights on the longevity of value‐destroying dysfunctional purchasing practices.

This paper shows how the common purchasing performance metric and the zero‐sum policies and practices used to obtain lower unit prices degrade buyer‐seller relationships and contribute to regression in the practice of purchasing and supply chain management, as well as in business overall.

This paper will be helpful to academics who study purchasing history as well as current purchasing and supplier relationship management practices. Practitioners will benefit by becoming reacquainted with sensible practices long known to result in more favorable outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differences among fashion trendsetting groups in money attitudes and consumer tendency to regret (CTR).

Students completed questionnaires containing demographic items and scales measuring money attitudes (power/prestige, quality, anxiety and distrust), CTR (CTR^purchase, CTR^{not purchase}) and trendsetting. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s α, M/ANOVA and SNK post hoc test.

Participants lowest in trendsetting scored lower in power/prestige than earlier adopters. Trendsetters scored higher in quality and anxiety than later adopters. Trendsetters scored higher in CTR^{not purchase} but not in CTR^purchase. Participants higher (vs lower) in CTR^purchase scored higher in power/prestige, distrust and anxiety but not in quality. Participants higher (vs lower) in CTR^{not purchase} scored higher in power/prestige, quality and anxiety but not in distrust.

Generalization of results is limited because the college student sample was not representative of the general population of consumers.

Many retailer sales tactics are designed to pressure consumers to buy and buy now – thus raising consumers’ level of anxiety. Retailers might benefit from strategies to reduce consumers’ negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, distrust) and to encourage attention to positive social or personal benefits of products.

Results extend cognitive dissonance theory and the post-purchase evaluation model by finding differences among fashion trendsetter groups in post-purchase evaluation and money attitudes. No prior research has explored CTR and money attitudes among fashion trendsetter groups.