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This research aims to establish the role of the purchasing function’s strategic alignment in the relationship between well-established practices and performance in that function. It is argued that the strategic alignment of purchasing may have effects (direct, mediating and moderating effects) on the purchasing function’s operating performance.

The hypotheses derived from key studies about strategic and advanced purchasing practices are tested with data from 156 industrial companies using structural equation modelling methodology.

The results suggest that the effect of strategic alignment on the role of purchasing consists of mediated effects on purchasing performance through implementation of certain advanced practices. It was also concluded that strategic alignment – as well as the implementation of these advanced purchasing practices – fosters the implementation of differentiation strategies based on quality, dependability and flexibility rather than on the implementation of cost leadership strategies.

Although it is a common practice in operations management research, the use of perceptual measures obtained from a single informant constitutes a noteworthy limitation. Future research should make an effort to combine different sources of information and to identify and use more objective indicators.

Top managers should take into account the need to involve the purchasing function in the firm’s strategic planning process.

The results not only confirm findings from previous literature as to the purchasing function’s strategic relevance but also help clarify the mechanisms that make this integration important.

This paper aims to explore how purchasing could respond to disruptive technologies by examining the assumptions underlying purchasing strategic alignment and purchasing maturity through a contingency lens.

This study uses a systematic review across purchasing maturity and purchasing strategic alignment literature. This is supplemented with exploratory case studies to include practitioners’ views.

This research demonstrates that neither purchasing maturity nor purchasing strategic alignment are suitable approaches to respond to disruptive technologies. Purchasing maturity does not allow purchasing managers to select relevant practices. It also shows no consideration of any contingencies, which practitioners highlight as important for the selection of practices. Purchasing strategic alignment includes the company strategy as a contingency but does not provide any practices to choose from. It does not include any other contextual contingencies considered important by practitioners. The findings indicate that linking the two research streams may provide a more suitable approach to responding to disruptive technologies.

This research demonstrates the requirement to develop a new approach to responding to disruptive technologies, by linking purchasing maturity and purchasing strategic alignment to contextual contingencies. This is a currently unexplored approach in academic literature, which refutes the generally accepted premise that higher maturity unilaterally supports a better positioning towards technological disruption. This research also highlights a requirement for practitioners to shift their approach to “best practices”.

This is the first research to systematically review the relationships between purchasing maturity and purchasing strategic alignment. It adds to contingency theory by suggesting that purchasing maturity models can support the achievement of strategic alignment. Also, future research directions are suggested to explore these relationships.

This purpose of this paper is to introduce strategic purchasing (SP) and supplier development (SD) as constructs that could have the potential to contribute to the success of relationship marketing efforts. Based on the relational view of the firm, the authors propose that SP is an antecedent of SD practices and can create value for the buying firm in terms of better purchasing performance.

Hypotheses derived from the key features of SP and SD practices are tested using structural equation modeling 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 SP exerts a direct influence on SD practices and purchasing performance, as well as an indirect impact on purchasing performance mediated through SD.

Further research is necessary to increase our understanding of a buyer's strategic purchasing and supplier development practices and more specifically how suppliers could develop a supporting environment to facilitate the strategic alignment of these two concepts. The limitations of the survey are also discussed.

The findings from this study provide supplying firms with an understanding of how buying firms use SD to deploy their SP initiatives in order to achieve improvements in purchasing performance.

While there is some literature analyzing SP and the implications for buyer‐supplier relationships, the relationship between SP and SD practices and their effect on purchasing performance has not been yet analyzed.

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 purpose of this study is twofold. First, to examine the contingent role of the product life cycle on the efficacy of purchasing practices. Second, to use the results of the first investigation to explore the adequacy of the profit‐maximization framework for explaining purchasing decision making. This second investigation is motivated by growing evidence on the role of institutional factors in explaining supply chain management practices.

Survey data from a sample of North American manufacturing firms, across four standard industry sectors, are analysed using ANOVA and linear regression, to examine the hypotheses.

The results indicate that product life cycle has a contingent effect on the efficacy of some purchasing practices but not on others. Interestingly, the results suggest that the profit‐maximization framework is capable of explaining only some purchasing decisions but not others; firms adopt certain purchasing practices in certain product life cycle stages, even when these practices have no apparent effect on purchasing performance. This raises a need for an alternative framework to profit‐maximization, to better understand purchasing decision making.

The paper pioneers an empirical examination of how product life cycle moderates the relationship between purchasing practices and purchasing performance. The paper presents novel insights on the inadequacy of the rational profit‐maximization framework to explain purchasing decision making. Furthermore, the paper presents testable propositions on the role of institutional factors that are potentially driving purchasing decision making in managing the product life cycle contingency.

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.

The aim of this study is to investigate and examine the impact of strategic purchasing practices (SPP) on strategic-fit (SF) by analyzing the influence of SPP on purchasing involvement in business strategy formulation with path-goal theory leadership styles as moderators.

Using survey data from 320 respondents representing 64 manufacturing firms in the Middle East, the authors measure SPP, purchasing involvement, leadership styles and SF of the purchasing function with business strategy.

Building on the path-goal approach to leadership, results suggest that participative, supportive and achievement-oriented leadership (AOL) styles are pure moderators, while directive leadership style (DLS) is a quasi-moderator in boosting the relationship between SPP and strategic purchasing involvement (SPI).

Limitations of the sampling methodology and sample size restricts the scope for generalizing the hypotheses. Further, data were collected only from manufacturing companies. The paper provides managerial implications on purchasing involvement in business strategy formulation and the different roles of leadership styles.

This is the first scholarly work to examine the different leadership styles as a moderator that affects the strategic involvement and status of strategic purchasing.

This paper aims to empirically examine the moderating role of strategic purchasing on the relationship between supply base complexity (SBC) and purchasing performance.

Survey data were collected from 209 firms listed in the Capital Top 500 Firms of Turkey. Measurement properties were assessed via confirmatory factor analysis, and the conceptual model was tested via hierarchical regression analysis. A supplementary analysis based on 14 semi-structured interviews was conducted to provide further insights on the survey findings.

Regarding structural SBC, the results suggest that horizontal complexity and supplier interaction improve purchasing performance, but only in firms with high strategic purchasing. By contrast, spatial complexity reduces purchasing performance in firms with high strategic purchasing, while supplier differentiation does not have any effect. Regarding dynamic SBC, the results show that both delivery complexity and supplier instability reduce purchasing performance when firms have low strategic purchasing. Interviews further suggest that firms with high strategic purchasing leverage the positive effects and mitigate the negative effects of SBC by having a long-term focus, considering multiple performance criteria and adopting advanced purchasing practices.

In contrast to what is widely posited in the existing literature, the nuanced findings of this study reveal that complexity is not always detrimental. The results suggest that practitioners should aim for high levels of strategic purchasing to suppress the negative effects of SBC while leveraging its benefits.

By investigating the contingency role of strategic purchasing, this study provides novel insights into the under-investigated issue of how to best “manage” SBC.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the geographical location of and thus the geographical distance between buyer and supplier impact on the efficacy of purchasing practices (i.e. strategic purchasing management, tactical purchasing management, relational purchasing management) in terms of operational performance.

The authors utilise cross-country data collected through the International Purchasing Survey group across a variety of countries and industry sectors. The authors conduct exploratory factor analysis to assess construct validity and regression analysis to test the varying effects of purchasing practices on operational performance. The authors split the sample to compare potential differences in the efficacy of purchasing practices between buyers and suppliers through geographical characteristics.

The results indicate that the efficacy of purchasing practices does indeed vary depending on differences in geographical location. Specifically, the authors identify that in cases where the buyer and supplier are located in the same country tactical and relational purchasing tools have a positive impact on operational performance. However, in cases where they are situated in different countries none of the purchasing tools seems to significantly improve operational performance.

Research that has taken a cross-country perspective on the efficacy of supply chain practices is surprisingly sparse. Since most supply chains are becoming more and more global it is important to consider the geographical location of the supply chain members when assessing the performance benefits of supply chain practices such as purchasing tools. Thus, the authors introduce and test the concept of geographical distance on the efficacy of purchasing practices at the dyadic level. To test the implications of geographical distance for purchasing practices the authors use a large-scale cross-country survey.

Notes that despite a considerable amount of literature on the impact of strategic purchasing and TQM on organizational performance, empirical evidence of the dynamic link is not easy to find. Examination of current literature identifies confusing definitions of strategic purchasing and TQM processes and the relationship to customer satisfaction. Analysis of a large random sample of manufacturing companies in Australia tests the strength of the relationship between strategic purchasing and customer satisfaction. Considering the literature, a conceptual, wider theoretical framework, together with a strategic purchasing construct and strategic purchasing framework are presented. Reports an empirical investigation on the effect of strategic purchasing variables on customer satisfaction. Presents initial results that suggest strategic purchasing may play a role in customer satisfaction and makes recommendations for future research.