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The topic of this research focuses on firm's perceived implementation of quality management practices in the purchasing function. More specifically, this paper describes an exploratory research effort to analyze and classify quality management practices in purchasing and assesses the relationships of these practices with measurements of a firm purchasing's operational performance (POP), internal customer satisfaction and business performance. The results reported in this study are based on a field survey consisting of responses gathered from 306 purchasing managers within the Spanish manufacturing industry. The assessment of the relationships among quality management practices in purchasing, POP, internal customer satisfaction and business performance is carried out using bivariate correlation analysis.

The field of environmental restoration is unique and highly complex. The purchasing function will be responsible for acquiring the restoration services for much of America′s estimated $500 billion clean‐up. Examines the specific characteristics of these projects and discusses how the unique nature of the work affects the function performed by today′s purchasing professionals. The scope and complexity of the purchasing job is vastly increased, requiring extensive teamwork and the development of dynamic and flexible purchasing strategies to handle the increased complexity and uncertainty at contaminated sites. Examines several alternative strategies for purchasing restoration services. No one strategy will fit every restoration project. The specific characteristics and unique nature of each project, and their effects on the purchasing job, must be considered in order to develop a well co‐ordinated and innovative purchasing strategy.

Develops and tests a model of team orientation in the global purchasing process of a Fortune 500 multinational services organization. Based on a sample of 179 domestic and 167 international strategic business units (SBUs), the results indicate that team orientation in a purchasing unit is influenced by transformational leadership behaviors and the SBU user’s flexibility in mental models, which, in turn, affects customer orientation, relationship commitment, and cycle time in the process. The results appear to be strategically robust across the domestic and international purchasing settings, while the tactical implications of the results differ somewhat depending on the purchasing scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to report results of a survey in support of re‐designing the Purchasing Management Association of Canada (PMAC) professional accreditation program, the Certified Professional Purchaser (CPP).

A questionnaire was developed, embedded in e‐mail messages via hyperlink, and transmitted to the PMAC membership. The questionnaire included 54 topics, tools and techniques for supply chain management (SCM). Over 2,000 PMAC members commented on CPP program design, by returning the questionnaire electronically. Data analysis culminated with a principal components analysis of the 54 items, from which seven distinct components emerged.

The paper finds that PMAC members lack a common view of SCM. While 63 percent have adopted a broad SCM perspective; 37 percent have a more narrow perspective. However, the most important topics for supply chain professionals are robust across the perspectives. These topics pertain to general managerial skills (e.g. communication, leadership and relationship building); rather than specific functional or analytical tools and techniques.

While the current study focuses exclusively on Canadian supply chain professionals, it would be very interesting and worthwhile to expand this research to other geographic locations.

A renewed CPP program, taken out of the somewhat narrow and tactically‐oriented purchasing area – and into the broader and more strategic SCM space, seems to be in order. The survey provides valuable information to support design and development of this new program.

Based on electronic survey returns from more than 2,000 supply chain professionals, insights are gained into various perspectives on SCM, along with important knowledge (topics, tools and techniques) for effective SCM.

Purchasing continues to be asked to keep prices down while securing more and better services. Operating under rapidly changing conditions, purchasing personnel are experiencing anxiety due to constraints that are not easily controlled. Such uncertainty calls for improvements in operational and strategic purchasing. To buy more for less under such uncertain conditions requires considerable discipline in buying. Yet, it can offer a valuable hedge against increasingly stiffer competition.

Examines the interorganizational alliance of a buyer and supplier with the expressed objective of improving the quality of existing purchased parts. Supplier quality can be improved through the implementation of various programmes such as statistical process control (SPC). Supplier quality improvement is viewed as two‐dimensional; there may be improvement owing to the modification of product designs or to implementation of process analysis techniques such as SPC. Examines the relative importance of each dimension of supplier quality improvement. The potential for improvement caused by each type of activity has significant organizational and resource allocation implications for both buyer and supplier.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of online behavior of internet users on the adoption of internet banking in Iran.

The samples used in this empirical study include 560 persons who were among Iranian internet users and completed the interactive questionnaires. The statistical analysis which has been used in regard to the dichotomous decision of adopting internet banking services was logistic regression.

The results reveal that the use of the internet for work or teamwork, selling or buying, finance activities or banking operations, and reading news, has significant relevance to the internet banking adoption, but using the internet with the purpose of having fun and entertainment and seeking commercial information does not have a significant effect on internet banking acceptance. Also, it was found that using the internet for reading news and hedonic goals has a negative effect on accepting internet banking. Other purposes of using the internet which were examined in this study had a positive effect on internet banking adoption in Iran.

The findings of this research provide several ideas for the marketing of internet banking and for developing internet banking web sites. Useful insights are provided for internet banking adoption and costs reduction.

The analysis is based on a random sample of internet users in Iran which has rarely been discussed in previous literature. Also this is the first study to investigate the influence of internet users' behavior on internet banking adoption in Iran.

The manufacturing techniques used by Japanese companies to provide a competitive advantage have been shown by Japan′s outstanding economic performance to be effective over a long period of time. This effectiveness can be measured in terms of the performance of manufacturing systems or by the way in which manufacturing effectiveness has been translated into success in the marketplace. In an effort to integrate current knowledge, a contextual model of Japanese manufacturing techniques has been constructed. These techniques are transferable from Japan. The key ingredient for success is to gain an understanding of the broad context of manufacturing culture, infrastructure and environment before expecting a transplanted or adapted Japanese system of manufacturing techniques to be effective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceptions of team performance and teamwork processes relate to functional diversity appropriateness perceptions (FDAP), that is, whether one believes that the right functions are represented in a team. Thereby, the authors distinguish between perceptions of team managers and team members.

The study involved a cross-sectional survey study among 48 sourcing teams from 12 multinational companies, all from different industries.

Members’ and managers’ congruent perceptions of performance showed differential relationships with their perceptions of the team’s functional diversity appropriateness. For managers, perceptions of team performance and functional diversity appropriateness were directly and positively related. For team members, this relationship was moderated by teamwork behavior. Moreover, unlike team members, purchasing managers did not consider functionally diverse teams to be more suitable for executing sourcing tasks.

This study identified teamwork behavior as a critical element for explaining the differences in FDAP of members and managers of sourcing teams.

Rather than homogenizing team structures, managers should stimulate good teamwork behavior that allows for an the integration of interests and insights from different functional areas.

This study adds to functional diversity literature as well as perceptual distance literature by revealing how different team effectiveness criteria shape managers’ and members’ perceptions of functional diversity appropriateness.

A lack of sourcing-specific team research prevents a full understanding of sourcing teamwork effectiveness (STE). Moreover, the limited purchasing and supply management (PSM) team literature often tends to focus on an aggregate group level. The paper makes a step towards adopting an individual actor perspective on teamwork effectiveness with an emphasis on the context of sourcing, explicating the effects of team-member knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), and examining how these relationships are moderated by a common learning experience of strategic sourcing masterclass.

Based on a cross-sectional survey, this study analyses a sample of 90 sourcing team members from a global aerospace manufacturing company using hierarchical regression analysis.

The results suggest that four of the five KSAs positively and significantly affect STE; the exception was collaborative problem solving. Masterclass learning outcomes were found to positively moderate the effects of these KSAs on STE, again exclusive of the collaborative problem-solving KSA.

Cross-sectional design focused only on the aerospace sector may affect generalizability. Further, longitudinal research designs would capture the effects of the common learning experience over an extended period.

Sourcing team members could be selected based on having KSAs which significantly affect teamwork effectiveness. Training and development for sourcing teams should combine guided reflexivity and cross-training to deliver learning outcomes that create similar team mental models.

The study provides an individual team-member perspective on the functioning of sourcing teams which is absent in the extant research. It contributes to the very limited research base on skills in PSM.