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This paper aims to investigate the interrelated role of relational commitment and dependence as drivers of key performance outcomes. Specifically, the authors provide a conceptual model of the impact of commitment on relationship value dependence and switching cost dependence. The authors further investigate how these dimensions of dependence offer differing noneconomic and economic paths to strategic and financial performance.

Survey data was collected from 296 purchasing agents across multiple industries located in the USA. The conceptual model and accompanying hypotheses were tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that the relational path is driven by affective and normative commitment, which are related to relationship value dependence. Conversely, calculative commitment is related to switching cost dependence. This economic path is related to both strategic and financial performance, whereas the relational path is more closely related to strategic as opposed to financial performance outcomes.

This study extends research on Business-To-Business (B2B) relationships by leveraging social exchange theory to examine the interrelated roles played by two forms of dependence on performance outcomes. Thus, the authors answer Scheer et al.’s (2015) call for research into the two distinct types of dependence – relationship value and switching cost dependence – and their roles in determining B2B relationship outcomes. The findings contribute to the literature by integrating social exchange and relationship marketing concepts to develop a dual pathway approach to B2B partnerships.

The results suggest that dependence is not necessarily negative for firms. Specifically, buyers can and do still exhibit positive performance, both strategic and financial, in relationships with suppliers even when dependent on the relationship. Regardless of whether buyers are dependent due to a relationship or economic factors, both can, in different ways, lead to positive strategic and financial outcomes. Together, the authors contribute to the understanding of B2B partnerships by offering guidelines for both buyers and suppliers in the dyad.

The authors derive a comprehensive model depicting primarily relational and economic paths to performance through different types of commitment and dependence. The authors contribute to the literature by demonstrating that relational and economic paths to success are not the same, highlighting how firms could influence performance even when the relationship is not necessarily characterized by generally positive relational benefits and behaviors.

The development of the digital age has made data and information more transparent, enhancing the strategic perspectives of both buyers (strategic waiting) and sellers (price fluctuations) in their decision-making. This research investigates the optimal dynamic pricing strategy of the content product developer in relation to their consideration of consumer fairness concerns to elucidate the impact of consumer fairness concerns on the dynamic pricing strategy of the developer.

This paper assumes that monopolistic content developers implement a dynamic pricing strategy for the content product. Through constructing a two-period dynamic pricing game model, this research investigates the optimal decisions of the content developer, contingent upon their consideration or disregard of consumer fairness concerns. In the extension section, the authors additionally account for the influence of myopic consumers on these optimal decisions.

Our findings reveal that the degree of consumer fairness concerns significantly influences the developer’s optimal dynamic pricing decision. When a developer offers content products with lower depth, there is a propensity for the developer to refrain from incorporating consumer fairness concerns into a dynamic pricing strategy. Conversely, in cases where the developer offers a high-depth content product, consumer fairness concerns benefit the developer. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a consistent benefit for the developer from the inclusion of myopic consumers.

Few studies have delved into the conjoined influence of consumer fairness concerns and strategic behavior on dynamic pricing strategy. Our findings indicate that consumer fairness concerns can enhance the efficiency of the value chain for content products under specific conditions. This paper not only enriches the existing literature on dynamic pricing by incorporating consumer fairness concerns theoretically but also offers practical insights. The outcomes of this research can guide content product developers in devising optimal dynamic pricing strategies.

The study sets out to demonstrate how a lifecycle perspective on complex, public-sector procurement projects can be used for making qualitative assessments of procurement policy and practice and reveal those procurement capabilities that are most impactful for operating effectively.

Agency theory, institutional theory and the lifecycle analysis technique are combined to abductively develop a framework to identify, analyse and compare complex procurement policies and practices in public sector organisations. Defence is the focal case and is compared with cases in the Nuclear, Local Government and Health sectors.

The study provides a framework for undertaking a lifecycle analysis to understand the challenges and capabilities of complex, public-sector buyers. Eighteen hierarchically-arranged themes are identified and used in conjunction with agency theory and institutional theory to explain complex procurement policy and practice variation in some of the UK’s highest-profile public buyers. The study findings provide a classification of complex buyers and offer valuable guidance for practitioners and researchers navigating complex procurement contexts.

The lifecycle approach proposed is a new research tool providing a bespoke application of theory by considering each lifecycle phase as an individual but related element that is governed by unique institutional pressures and principal-agent relationships.

Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) is strongly purpose-oriented and characterized by a focus on inclusiveness and social and environmental sustainability, with attention to both internal and external stakeholders and their needs. In the attempt to provide new research in this field, this study aims to conduct an empirical investigation within the theory of HumEnt and, in particular, of the Human Resource Orientation (HRO) model among Italian Small and Medium-size Enterprises.

Based on quantitative data, this study used a deductive approach to investigate the relationship between the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness with different types of stakeholders (value chain stakeholders and societal stakeholders, respectively). More concretely, to investigate the relationships between the dimensions of the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness, partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied.

Findings of this study suggest that Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) directly contributes only to value chain embeddedness. However, the results also show that if EO is mediated by an HRO (i.e. companies with a high HRO), a high level of societal embeddedness is also present.

This study represents a first attempt to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the different dimensions characterizing the HumEnt theoretical model, and to highlight their relevance in supporting companies’ relational embeddedness capacity with different categories of stakeholders.

This study aims to investigate purchasing manager’s core competencies during supplier collaboration and explain the mechanism through which these competencies can affect purchasing firm’s innovative performance.

The authors conducted 22 semidirective interviews with managers in diverse functions such as purchasing, supply-chain management and product development across industries and across nations (mostly India and France), which allow to formulate the propositions.

Through open coding, the authors identify three path-dependent, causally ambiguous and socially complex core competencies of purchasing managers: relational and emotional, communicational and creative and cognitive competencies; and through axial coding, the authors explain how these intangible core competencies support implementation of market orientation. To provide supporting arguments for the propositions, the authors use the resource-based view of the firm and dynamic capability theory.

The first theoretical contribution of this study is focusing on the impact of competency–capability dyad in terms of performance. The second theoretical contribution of this study is to identify market orientation as a flexible and dynamic managerial capability.

The first managerial contribution is that the authors have identified and described three sets of a purchasing manager’s core competencies during supplier collaboration that affect the firm’s performance: relational and emotional, communicational and creative and cognitive competencies. The second managerial contribution relates to the mechanism through which purchasing managers’ core competencies during supplier collaboration affect firms’ outcomes.

The value of the results is in the explanation of the mechanism, i.e. market orientation dynamic capability, through which the competencies of purchasing managers can affect purchasing firm’s innovative performance.

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.

Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

This study aims to examine whether and how corporate sustainability capability influences energy efficiency through competitive intensity and slack resource availability.

The authors applied a two-wave research design and administered a survey questionnaire to senior-level managers of 78 ISO-14001 and ISO-50001 certified manufacturing companies. The authors use a multi-method approach for data analysis. AMOS 23 software was applied for covariance-based structural equation modeling. In addition, SPSS 25 software was applied for hierarchical regression analysis to examine the causal relationships in the model.

The finding reveals that corporate sustainability capabilities, which include energy-saving opportunities, seizing energy-saving opportunities and resource reconfiguration, significantly improve firms’ energy efficiency. In addition, competitive intensity and slack resource availability positively moderated the relationship between corporate sustainability capability and energy efficiency.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the link between corporate sustainability capability and energy efficiency in developing countries such as Pakistan. Although the influence of various corporate sustainability capabilities on sustainable performance has been widely examined in the literature, the role of corporate sustainability capability has been limitedly explored with energy efficiency. This study extends the literature by adding to the knowledge of corporate sustainability capability that enhances boundary conditions in developing countries.

This study aims to analyze the effects of socialization mechanisms (belief system and peer mentoring) on managers’ job engagement and their desire to have a significant impact through work, that is, the desire to substantially improve or facilitate the lives of others by performing their work. The study also examines the moderating role of organizational identification.

A survey was conducted with middle and lower-level managers at one of the largest banks in Brazil, the BankCo. The authors obtained a sample of 201 respondents and tested the research hypotheses with structural equation modeling. The authors also performed a complementary data analysis with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

The results suggest that belief systems and peer mentoring directly promote job engagement and indirectly promote desire to have a significant impact to a better world through work (through full mediation of job engagement). The effects of job engagement on desire to have a significant impact through work are even greater when managers have high organizational identification. Finally, several causal combinations are sufficient for high levels of desire to have a significant impact through work.

Beyond studies that examine how organizational mechanisms influence employee outcomes (e.g. performance), this study explores how socialization mechanisms can promote desire to have a significant impact through work. Thus, the authors demonstrate how organizational core values, mission statement and peer mentoring collaborate for managers to develop altruistic behavior, that is, directly related to other human values, such as empathy and ethics, being able to contribute to a world better.

This study developed and empirically tested a model that connects socialization mechanisms, job engagement, organizational identification and managers’ desire to have a significant impact through their work. Therefore, the paper provides insights into the relevance of socialization mechanisms for orchestrating managers’ proactive and altruistic behaviors.

Digital transformation misalignment refers to disparities in digital transformation levels between suppliers and buyers across the production and operation process. It has negatively affected supply chain stability. However, the existing research concerning the economic consequences has not been adequately addressed. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate whether such digital transformation misalignment increases supplier financial risk and to identify the factors influencing this relationship.

This paper examines binary combinations of suppliers and buyers listed on China’s A-share market between 2011 and 2021. This group constitutes a sample to empirically test the influence of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk, as well as the moderating effect of the geographical and organizational distances.

The paper’s findings demonstrate that digital transformation misalignment has indeed a significant increase in the supplier’s financial risk. Moreover, the impact is more intense when the geographical or organizational distance between the supplier and the buyer is relatively large.

The existing literature rarely explores the potential risks arising from digital transformation misalignment between supply chain partners. Therefore, this paper fills a notable gap as it is the first to study the impact of digital transformation misalignment on the supplier’s financial risk and the specific applied mechanisms. The contribution significantly improves the field of corporate digital transformation, particularly, within the context of supply chain management.