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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.

Little is known about actual price savings generated by cooperative purchasing and nonmonetary advantages, disadvantages and impediments for the cooperative purchasing of complex or high-risk purchases. This paper aims to explore these topics by studying joint purchasing of pacemakers in The Netherlands.

To evaluate the magnitude of price savings, data on individual and collective prices for 18 hospitals was analyzed. In addition, 16 interviews were carried out with representatives of hospitals that participated and did not participate in the joint purchase.

Based on quantitative and qualitative data, the authors found large differences in price savings which can be attributed to scale, but mostly to knowledge of the group and renewing a contract in a technology-driven and developing market. Limited product choice – because of an organization joining a cooperative – constrained the attractiveness of cooperative purchasing, as end users may have specific product preferences. The consideration of preferences of end users is important toward successful joint purchasing of complex items.

The authors argue that price savings because of scale are about 7% for smaller organizations and 4% for larger organizations. For smaller organizations with low specific knowledge and capacity for buying complex products, economies of process and knowledge are more important reasons for joining a purchasing group than scale. For large organizations with high specific knowledge and capacity, scale is the most important reason.

This study combined qualitative and quantitative perspectives, using actual spend data, to investigate cooperative purchasing of high-risk or complex purchases. On the one hand, more insight into the magnitude and reasons for price savings is provided than in earlier literature. On the other hand, more insight is given in qualitative reasons for joining a group and challenges for cooperative purchasing of complex items.

The performance of the industrial purchasing department must be reconsidered and re‐evaluated in the light of the recent importance found in quality orientation, persistent economic uncertainty, supply shortages and expected service commitment. There is a need to determine feasible price‐service options. The price objectives of suppliers now include impact on organisational image, and the effects of prices charged on investment, market share and profit maximisation. Pricing tactics, rather than other cost‐related concerns, are used to gain market share, so industrial buyers need to be aware of suppliers' strategies, and must also assess service levels and performance quality. This examination of the factors in purchasing strategy suggests that it must be capable of reaching to a complex environment.Both buyer and seller must re‐think (a) the value the buyer places in the product, (b) the costs incurred and (c) the price structure and behaviour of competitors.

Analyses changes taking place within purchasing and its environment. Interpreting such trends wisely will be necessary to achieve an optimal relationship between purchasing and other organizational units. Addresses how changes in purchasing affect profit generation, securing of new and better suppliers, achieving higher “real value” in products bought, dealing with new and emerging forms of sales pressure (including related supplier strategies and tactics), improving price hike rationale assessment, and determining effective purchasing strategy relative to prevailing economic conditions‐all of which are leading to a broadened role and relevance of purchasing today. Discusses current, significant purchasing trends, how they will influence future decision making, and the need for purchasing to help establish and maintain strong cross‐functional ties with all relevant parties. Directs analysis and discussion towards all individuals and groups affecting or being affected by the purchasing function domestically and abroad.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences in preferred supplier choice criteria between food purchasing agents who focus on supplier security and those that do not. Specifically, this research determines the relationship between purchasing agents’ supplier security preferences and their preferences for product quality, delivery reliability, price, and supplier location. The influence of international sourcing on demand for increased supplier security is also explored.

Choice-based conjoint analysis with hierarchical Bayes (HB) estimation and t-tests are used to assess and compare the utility food purchasing managers derive from different supplier attributes.

Purchasing managers that place a higher priority on security when choosing suppliers were willing to pay suppliers a higher price and receive lower levels of delivery reliability in return for higher security but placed less emphasis on suppliers’ product quality. Firms that source internationally do not have a significantly greater preference for advanced supplier security. However, purchasing managers that value supplier security were more likely to source internationally, potentially indicating that security allows for global sourcing by mitigating the increased vulnerability inherent to sourcing abroad.

This research was limited by its focus on the food industry and a relatively small sample size.

This work illustrated that food purchasing managers can be segmented by the emphasis they place on security. Food industry managers will find results useful in formulating their future service offerings with respect to security and other supplier choice criteria.

This is one of few works investigating security as a supplier choice criterion and utilizing HB estimation of choice-based conjoint data.

To describe the tactics that buyers often use to avoid unfavorable purchase price variance (PPV) and identify alternate approaches that will improve purchasing performance and also help achieve company objectives.

Descriptive: presents for the first time 12 dysfunctional tactics used by buyers of industrial goods use to avoid unfavorable PPV.

The tactics are shown to increase costs rather than decrease costs and lead to organizational dysfunction. Findings are broadly applicable to large corporations that use legacy software systems or newer enterprise requirement planning (ERP) software systems to track purchasing costs and transactions, and also have a strong management focus on price‐based purchasing performance.

Findings are limited to organizations that measure the success of purchasing and supply management activities using price‐based metrics.

Should propel managers to identify alternative metrics or processes for managing purchasing performance, reduce system‐wide costs, and improve day‐to‐day work in purchasing organizations.

This paper will be helpful to academics researching operational or behavioral aspects of purchasing, practitioners managing supply chains, auditors assessing the integrity of material cost reporting and management controls, and persons concerned about ethics in business.

Grounded in the theory of mental budgeting, this paper aims to investigate how the regret and perfectionism of exposition attendees influences their purchasing strategy.

This research collected on-site data at a well-established specialty food exposition in China. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to test the proposed model.

The findings confirm the effect of psychological mechanism (regret and perfectionism) on exposition attendees’ purchasing strategy as one that boosts/impairs their confidence in purchasing healthy food at the exposition. Specifically, regret and perfectionism show differential contributions to purchasing strategy dimensions. Variety seeking has a positive effect, whereas price consciousness has a negative effect, on purchase confidence.

Event organizers and exhibitors should understand attendees’ consumption-related psychological mechanism and devise effective management and marketing strategies for optimal consumption experiences at expositions. They can create an informative and worry-free experience that facilitates a pleasant thought process to reduce uncertainty in attendees’ on-site decision-making.

The current research pioneered a unique model conceptualizing the important, yet underexplored, phenomenon of purchasing mechanism in the exposition setting. Addressing the emerging interest in food expositions, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first for examining purchasing mechanism from the perspective of mental budgeting, providing insightful knowledge about how the psychological mechanism affects exposition attendees’ pre-purchase evaluation and confidence toward purchasing healthy food at expositions.

The next generation of shoppers is hitting the stores, and forward‐thinking retailers are following their every move. For retailers who target the teen market, developing strategies aimed at reaching this market are complex. This study was conducted for a large south‐eastern US department store chain which was interested in learning more about the purchasing behaviours of teenagers. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between jean purchase criteria, the type of store selected when purchasing a pair of jeans and teenagers’ purchasing behaviours. The sample consisted of teenagers aged 14 to 18 years old who were enrolled in a required economics class in four representative high schools. Results indicated that jean purchase criteria and type of store impact on both information‐seeking behaviours and price‐conscious purchasing behaviours among teenagers. For the information seeker, price, wash and brand were statistically significant and influenced the degree of information‐seeking behaviour. The cost‐conscious teenager was influenced by price, brand and quality. In addition, males and African Americans placed a greater importance on the store where purchases were made than did females and whites, respectively. Opportunities exist for all types of stores which are interested in attracting the teen market. Retailers need to understand where teenagers shop and the criteria that they use for selecting a store. Additional research needs to be conducted to investigate the cross‐shopping behaviours of teenagers and the store selection criteria they use.

A new era for management is emerging. Staying closer to the business of the company's primary expertise with an action‐based, value‐driven philosophy is being emphasised. A simple flexible organisational form directed at generating customer satisfaction is becoming more dominant. This requires more effective supply management than ever before. An enlarged role with greater significance for purchasing is resulting.

The paper examines the moderating role of a purchasing function's absorptive capacity (AC) on the relationship between the use of electronic purchasing tools and category level purchasing performance. The authors argue that an e‐purchasing tool may not in itself positively influence performance unless combined with AC as a human interface to maximise its information and transactional improvement potential.

Survey data collected from 297 procurement executives of large companies in ten countries are analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical moderated regression.

The results demonstrate few significant direct effects of e‐purchasing tools on category performance. All performance measures studied are enhanced when dimensions of AC and their interactions with the e‐purchasing tools are added. Specifically, buyer competence, manager competence and communications climate have performance‐enhancing effects. In some cases, AC on its own appears to increase performance more than e‐tools.

This paper is the first to study the moderating effects of AC on the relationship between e‐purchasing tool usage and category performance. Its findings support the view that simply implementing technology does not lead to performance improvements, but that a human interface is required to maximise the information and transactional improvement potential of e‐purchasing tools.