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There are two major objectives in the research. First, the authors investigate the impact of knowledge integration in terms of joint decision-making and joint sense-making, on relational performance, including operational efficiency and innovation. Second, the authors examine the key antecedents that might facilitate knowledge integration: strategic supply management and trust. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper expands and tests theory drawing upon survey data from 133 buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs). The authors employed a two-step process of analysis to evaluate first the measurement model and then the structural model. The measurement model test built upon confirmatory factor analysis, while the structural model quality test built upon path analysis.

The results suggest that both integrative mechanisms, joint decision making and joint sense making, affect performance although in different ways. This study also finds that while trust has multiple significant influences and consequently must be viewed as an organizing principle, strategic supply management is required to jointly understand the dynamic and complex context but not to jointly make ongoing decisions.

Three limitations: first, this study was cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. Second, in line with accepted practice, the authors surveyed only one side of the relationship. The suppliers’ viewpoint is thus not fully taken into account. Third, another potential limitation of the study is that the sample stems from just one country and its size does not distinguish subgroups in the analysis of the path model.

Managers should be advised that: first, a trusting partnership built on knowledge integration is a hard order, especially with a new, unknown supplier in a low-cost country, where intellectual property protection is less obvious; second, strategic supply management may not improve cost or operational performance, but in its absence, it is unlikely that a supplier has insight into the exact needs of its buyer and thus, may not add considerable value to their customers; third, building a dynamic knowledge integration capability (valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate) takes time, as does creating reliable learning mechanisms. Joint teams, visit partners’ workplace, early involve suppliers in developing new products or selection of supplier with high-learning capabilities may help to create a knowledge integration capability.

The authors suggest that companies should move from an arm-length relationship and turn their supplier relationships into a tool for innovating faster while cutting cost. In order to do this, joint sense-making and joint decision should be seen as institutionalized inter-firm routines rather than ad hoc activities. Thus, the authors recommend managers to proactively build certain knowledge-based capabilities that hinges heavily upon a strategic stance toward supply management and trustful relationships with selected suppliers.

The major intent of this research is to expand understanding of knowledge integration by building a more testable, complex model around its creation. While previous research relied on a configuration approach to explore the relationship between knowledge integration and performance, the authors evaluate causal relationships at the level of the formative dimensions rather than higher order knowledge integration, as this has proven to be a superior analytical method. Second, although supply chain scholars have expressed great interest in trust, an in-depth examination of prior studies in knowledge integration indicate that trust has been analyzed alone. In contrast, the study empirically examines the simultaneous effect of trust and strategic supply management in BSRs.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the activities that nascent firms undertake to improve customer attractiveness and gain collaborative commitment from strategic suppliers.

Data from a grounded theory study consisting of 26 participants from 15 firms and a review of extant literature were used to develop a theoretical model that explains how a nascent firm increases its customer attractiveness to elicit commitment and collaboration from strategic suppliers.

The authors find that social capital, born of close social ties and social history, enhances the effectiveness of a nascent firm's relationship-building practices. This counteracts a supplier's collaborative risk and consequently increases the nascent firm's customer attractiveness, thus enabling it to obtain strategic supplier collaborative commitment.

This research helps managers by providing direction on what practices nascent firms pursue to gain strategic supplier resources and collaboration. Given the reality of resource constraints in nascent firms, it is suggested that this insight is essential to obtaining crucial external resources needed to survive and grow.

Extant research on buyer–supplier collaboration is mostly confined to the context of mature firms and does not account for the unique inter-organizational relational challenges faced by nascent firms. This research uncovers the idiosyncrasies of supplier management in nascent firms, and elucidates on the actions that nascent firm managers take to gain supplier collaborative commitment.

The purpose of this research is to identify the core values and key success factors in strategic sourcing; and to examine the importance of strategic sourcing and the key success factors in the Hong Kong toy industry. In addition, the relationship between the implementation of the key factors and sourcing performance in the Hong Kong toy industry are investigated.

The empirical research is based on a questionnaire survey that collected data from 205 Hong Kong toy companies. The survey investigated the degree of importance of key success strategic sourcing factors and the extent of implementation of the key factors in the companies. Furthermore, the sourcing performance of the companies was measured to investigate its relationship with the implementation of the key factors.

The research identifies five core values and 14 key success factors in strategic sourcing through literature reviews. The survey findings indicate that the identified key success factors are important and positively related to the sourcing performance. Moreover, the results show that the implementation of strategic sourcing in the Hong Kong toy industry is lagging behind the degree of importance of strategic sourcing.

Since there is a gap between the implementation and importance of strategic sourcing, there is room for the Hong Kong toy industry to improve sourcing performance by addressing the 14 key success factors.

The paper identifies the key success strategic sourcing factors to improve sourcing performance in the Hong Kong toy industry.

The purpose of this paper is to test the moderated-mediated model using a dataset drawn from 204 manufacturing firms in Australia, and Hayes' PROCESS macro software was used for analyzing the research model.

This study examines how firms can leverage the strategic value of their key supplier for improving their product performance by developing strategic collaborations with the key supplier as a mediating factor. Furthermore, it also seeks to understand the role that commitment plays in strategic relationships by testing how the mediating role of strategic collaboration is moderated by the level of buyer-suppliers relational capital.

The findings show that strategic collaborations mediate the relationship between the strategic value of key supplier and buyer's product performance, and the mediating effect is moderated by the relational capital between the buyer and the key supplier in such a way that the stronger the relational capital the stronger the indirect effect of strategic value of key supplier on buyer's product performance.

The findings show that firms could derive significant benefits from the strategic value of their key supplier in improving their product performance. However, the benefits can only be realized if firms can build successful strategic collaborations in the first place. At the same time, this study also demonstrates the importance of relational capital in terms of commitment and trust with the key supplier that influences the effectiveness of strategic collaborations in realizing the outcome of the collaborations.

This study addresses the gap in the literature by disentangling the complex relationship between a key supplier's strategic value and a buyer's product performance and the role that both collaboration and relational capital play in this relationship. By integrating strategic collaborations and relational capital of buyer-supplier relationships, this study not only confirms the links by testing key supplier's strategic value, strategic collaboration and product performance, but also extends the previous studies by incorporating the moderating role of relational capital as a contingent factor.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive methodology and a problem-specific model for the configuration of the optimal strategic supplier portfolio in terms of traditional, performance-related objectives and sustainability targets.

To bridge the research gap, i.e., to align strategic supplier portfolio selection with corporate sustainability targets, a hybrid model of the analytic network process (ANP) and goal programming (GP) is developed. To validate the model, a case example is presented and managerial feedback is collected.

By enabling the integration of sustainability targets into strategic supplier portfolio configuration, the hybrid ANP-GP model contributes to research in the area of sustainable supply chain management. Results indicate that simplifying the model by omitting one or more details may lead to unfortunate actions.

The model has been applied using a case example in the automotive industry. To strengthen the findings, it should be examined under other terms as well.

Integrating economic, environmental, and social targets into strategic supplier portfolio configuration reduces supply risks and promotes the achievement of the sustainability goals of the purchasing company.

Strategic supplier selection counts among the decisions that have an impact on the environment and society for several years. Configuring economically rational, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible supplier bases supports worldwide efforts towards sustainable development.

Although sustainable supplier selection has gained importance in recent years, this is the first time that a comprehensive model for the determination of the optimal strategic supplier portfolio in terms of performance-related objectives and sustainability targets has been proposed.

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.

Previous research has reported that the adoption of a strategic purchasing orientation (SPO) requires closer relationships with key suppliers and greater long‐term planning in supply management. This paper aims to develop a generic framework for the evaluation of key supply relationships incorporating seven key categories and to empirically test these assumptions by comparing firms reporting high levels of strategic purchasing to those with low levels.

The data collection employed a mail survey sent to the senior manager responsible for purchasing in their organisation (n = 50).

The article finds that high SPO firms more closely scrutinise their supply relationships across a broad range of attributes, and, as well as perennially important issues such as quality and delivery, they emphasise “fit” between buyer and supplier (e.g. fit with the competitive strategy and organisational culture of the buying firm) as an important criterion in identifying failing relationships.

The positioning of the current study as one of the first to address the evaluation of suppliers under strategic purchasing adoption calls for further replication.

The results of this study afford suppliers an understanding of the criteria by which firms adopting strategic purchasing evaluate troubled or weak relationships. This would seem particularly timely given the shift towards strategic purchasing by many organisations.

This study presents one of the first attempts to assess “ineffective” supplier performance and to incorporate metrics on strategic supplier selection.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the antecedents of strategic supplier relationships in conjunction with outcomes of product and service quality and financial performance. The management of strategic supplier relationships involves the selection and development of suppliers that share common goals and strategies of the partnering organization.

Structural equation modeling using partial least squares is used to verify and test these relationships.

Top management support, technological preparedness and trust were found to have significant positive influences on the management of strategic supplier relationships. Strategic supplier relationships were found to have a positive influence on product and service quality outcomes and financial performance.

The results provide new and original empirical evidence on the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of strategic supplier relationships.

The findings can contribute to the management of supplier relationships, resulting in improved product and service quality outcomes and financial performance.

The research adds empirical evidence to the literature on the factors that contribute to effective supplier relationships and the customer- and firm-related outcomes of this process.

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.

Refers to the recent trend to utilize strategic alliances and partnerships for securing both goods and services. Additionally, the supply chain management concept is gaining more acceptance as a method of sustaining a competitive advantage in global markets. Although the literature explores strategic partnerships within both the buyer and supplier context and the shipper and logistics context, there has been little attempt to link these relationships in order to explore multi‐firm interactions. Examines existing buyer‐supplier strategic partnerships and the role of carriers used to transport the particular items sourced within these partnerships through an in‐depth case study methodology of firms engaged in identifiable three‐party relationships. There are two primary objectives of this research: to assess the carriers’ perceived importance and degree of participation within the buyer‐supplier partnerships; and to explore further the relationship between strategic partnerships and supply chain management by presenting more detailed information from firms involved in three‐way relationships. Of interest to carriers, manufacturers, purchasers and academics.