Search results

A deteriorating security situation and an increased need for defence equipment calls for new forms of collaboration between Armed Forces and the defence industry. This paper aims to investigate the ways in which the accelerating demand for increased security of supply of equipment and supplies to the Armed Forces requires adaptability in the procurement process that is governed by laws on public procurement (PP).

This paper is based on a review of current literature as well as empirical data obtained through interviews with representatives from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration and the Swedish defence industry.

Collaboration with the globalized defence industry requires new approaches, where the PP rules make procurement of a safe supply of defence equipment difficult.

The study's empirical data and findings are based on the Swedish context. In order to draw more general conclusions in a defence context, the study should be expanded to cover more nations.

The findings will enable the defence industry and the procurement authorizations to better understand the requirements of Armed Forces, and how to cooperate under applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

The paper extends the extant body of academic knowledge of the security of supply into the defence sector. It serves as a first step towards articulating a call for new approaches to collaboration in defence supply chains.

This paper aims to investigate how purchasing organizations implement supplier diversity (SD) initiatives over time.

A multiple case study approach was conducted. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with participants from purchasing organizations, intermediary organizations and diverse suppliers.

The research suggests that the SD journey encompasses three different, but interrelated stages before full implementation is achieved: structuring, operation and adaptation. The findings also provide evidence that SD implementation in Brazil is highly influenced by the lack of a consistent knowledge base and the lack of legitimized intermediary organizations.

Using a temporal approach to understand how different practices suggested by the literature have been managed by practitioners over time, this study contributes to the understanding of the path to effective SD implementation and how intra- and interorganizational context influences this journey.

By identifying which practices should be adopted during different phases of SD implementation and proposing ways to overcome some of the inherent challenges, managers can better plan and allocate resources for the adoption of a successful SD initiative.

This research demonstrates how organizations can promote diversity and reduce social and economic inequalities by buying from diverse suppliers.

Using a temporal approach, the research empirically investigates how different purchasing organizations have implemented and managed the known practices and dealt with the challenges faced when trying to adopt SD.

This study aims to investigate the interaction effect between offering supply chain finance (SCF) programmes and sustainability ratings on the liquidity performance of buyers and suppliers.

The study uses a unique sample of buyers that each have an SCF programme. The sample is complemented with financial information and sustainability scores. The data is analysed through a random effects model.

Aligning with recent advances in SCF literature, the results confirm a tendency for SCF programmes to favour buyers over suppliers. However, the relationship between SCF programme adoption and liquidity performance for buyers and suppliers is positively moderated by the strong sustainability performance of both parties.

Buyers and suppliers are advised to implement and adopt effective SCF programmes that are beneficial for both parties. For buyers, the authors suggest leveraging on SCF programmes as incentives to foster sustainable behaviour among suppliers. For suppliers, the authors recommend caution before joining programmes offered by buyers that do not perform well on sustainability.

Enhancing sustainability within global supply chains and fostering favourable payment practices towards suppliers are crucial for policy development and regulation. The findings clarify the connection between both components, offering valuable insights for policymakers in this domain.

The study is built on a manually picked, unique database of buyers offering SCF programmes to their suppliers. This allows, across a large sample, an evaluation of the differences between buyers that offer SCF programmes and those that do not.

I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.

To collect data, a survey among 500 Polish manufacturing companies was conducted. I used quantitative methods (structural equation modeling) to test several research hypotheses referring to a single supplier–customer relationship. Thanks to the use of multi-construct measurement of SIPD and supplier relationship resilience, the study provides detailed research results on the topic.

Collaborative practices implemented during SIPD increase procurement flexibility and decrease redundancy in the relationship with the involved supplier. Communication during SIPD increases supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Increased supplier flexibility and increased procurement flexibility in the relationship with the involved supplier as well as collaborative practices during SIPD positively impact company performance. I confirmed the indirect effect between communication during SIPD and company performance when the mediators are supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Decreased redundancy in relationship with involved supplier does not impact company performance.

Supply chain managers need to rethink SIPD practice to effectively ensure supply chain resilience (SCRES), especially in the face of the contemporary global crisis and black swans affecting the supplier base. My article provides important managerial insights into drivers of SCRES and company performance.

To the best of my knowledge, this research is among the first to conclude that SIPD does not have an unequivocally positive or direct impact on supplier relationship resilience. The research fills the gap by analyzing the impact of SIPD on two main SCRES elements. The study examines supplier relationship resilience, understood as flexibility and redundancy elements, in a single supplier–buyer relationship perspective. Thus, the presented considerations go beyond the traditional understanding of flexibility and redundancy in supplier relationship management, that is through the prism of double or multi sourcing and having back up-suppliers.

This article aims to map the expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers in terms of implementing improvement activities. The article poses two research questions: RQ1: What kind of improvement of activities do the surveyed producers expect from their suppliers? RQ2: Do factors such as size, capital or implemented systems influence different assessments of the analyzed requirements toward suppliers?

The Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique was used to collect data. The sample consists of 150 producers (employing over 50 people) who were suppliers for enterprises from the automotive, electromechanical and chemical sectors operating in the Polish business-to-business (B2B) market. We analyzed 11 improvement activities, while their correlation structure was examined by exploratory factor analysis.

We have identified three latent factors – risk reduction, product innovation and increasing efficiency – which summarize the main expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers. Expectations for these factors are independent of the implemented management system, although the analysis showed higher expectations for product innovation in organizations with the implementation of Kaizen.

The article fills the research gap in the literature. The research results presented in the literature so far have focused on the expectations of enterprises towards suppliers in terms of meeting the criteria for their initial and periodic assessment. The research gap in the article is the result of empirical research presenting the expectations of manufacturers towards suppliers in terms of improving their processes. Based on the findings of the presented study, development trends and implications for managers responsible for purchasing processes and relationships with suppliers can be determined.

This study aims to build on the dynamic capability view by examining dynamic capabilities associated with public value in public procurement.

A qualitative case study approach is used in this study. The interview and secondary data consist of eight cases of value-creating procurement from four public organizations.

The findings connect dynamic capabilities and public value in terms of innovation generation and promotion, well-functioning supplier markets, public procurement process effectiveness, environmental and social sustainability and quality and availability of products or services.

Dynamic capabilities in public procurement are necessary to improve public procurement.

This study extends understanding of how sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities contribute to public value creation in both innovative and less innovative (i.e. ordinary) procurement scenarios.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

This paper aims to investigate sustainability-led innovation, focusing on the interplay between product and process innovation for sustainability goals and the underlying supplier–customer relationships. Thus, the paper delves into sustainability-led innovation and how it affects supplier–customer relationships, and vice versa, thus providing a twofold perspective.

The textile industry is the empirical context of this study, which is exploratory research based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, managers and experts in the textile industry.

In the textile industry, sustainability-led product innovation concerns mainly product durability and performance, product recyclability and the use of waste for new product development. Process innovation deals with circular economy, traceability and water and chemical use minimization. The paper also shows how sustainability-led innovation is implemented in more technical terms and regarding supplier–customer relationships.

The paper adopts an original perspective on how processes take place in the relationships between suppliers and customers, where there is no dominance of one actor, but innovation emerges from interdependence and interaction. Such perspective allows to provide an in-depth analysis of the supplier–customer relationships and underlying dynamics that affect sustainability-led innovation; moreover, the authors study how such innovation impacts supplier–customer relationships and the underlying relational dynamics. The value of the paper also stands in delivering a real representation of the innovation processes grounded in the textile industry.

This paper investigates whether and how the financial services offered by an e-commerce platform can help budget-constrained small- and medium-sized suppliers improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance.

The authors examine a supply chain in which a budget-constrained supplier engages in CSR, produces a finished product and sells it on the marketplace of an e-commerce platform. This platform offers financial services to the supplier, choosing among three types of financing models: target rate of return, credit limit and CSR-linked financing. Using a Stackelberg game approach, the authors can drive the equilibrium decisions under each financing model.

The results reveal that all three financing models help improve the supplier's CSR investment as long as consumer sensitivity toward CSR exists. Moreover, the last one leads to the highest profitability of the overall supply chain and each member.

The findings shed light on the role of platform financing and how to design the most appropriate financing model to improve CSR for supply chain managers.

Based on the chain liability and green halo effects, this study uses the perspective of multi-tier supply chain management to examine the impact mechanism and boundary conditions of suppliers' green innovation types on consumers' willingness to participate in value co-creation with focal firms from the perspective of multi-tier supply chain management.

Using four situational experiments, 660 participants were recruited in Credamo, and SPSS 23.0 was used for data analysis. Experiments 1a and 1b verify the effect of suppliers' green innovation on consumers' willingness to participate in value co-creation with focal firms; experiment 2 examines the mediating effect of green sincerity perception; and experiment 3 explores the moderating effect of innovation proactiveness.

The results show that suppliers' green innovation efforts are more sincere when they are substantive (vs. symbolic), thereby generating higher value co-creation intentions. As a driving force, innovation proactiveness moderates the influence of suppliers' green innovation types on consumer's willingness to co-create value with focal firms.

This study enriches the literature on green supply chain management (GSCM) and consumers' willingness to co-create value. Furthermore, this study provides firms with practical guidance to improve marketing performance and green innovation practices through multilevel GSCM.