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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.

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.

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 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.

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.

First, this study expands knowledge on the strategic decision process dimension decision-making speed by analyzing decision-making speed and two possible antecedents in a purchasing context. Second, it takes an additional step toward clarifying the relationship between strategic and lateral integration. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential mediating effect of lateral purchasing integration on the relationship between strategic purchasing integration and purchasing decision-making speed.

This research analyzes survey data of 152 firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland using covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The results of the structural equation model provide strong support for the hypothesized relationships. Strategic purchasing integration drives lateral purchasing integration, which in turn positively influences purchasing decision-making speed.

This study focusses solely on internal types of integration. A logical next step would be to further enrich the model by including external dimensions, such as supplier or customer integration.

This study should help managers gain a better understanding of the relationship between strategic and lateral purchasing integration, highlighting their positive impact on decision-making speed. Decision-making speed is particularly important for companies operating in volatile markets and time-constrained business environments.

This study offers new insights into the theoretical and empirical connection between intra-organizational purchasing integration, unpacked as strategic purchasing integration and lateral purchasing integration, and purchasing decision-making speed. Furthermore, it offers insights into decision-making speed in a purchasing context.

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 focus of this paper is on purchasing and supplier involvement in the firm. Using the resource‐base view of the firm, hypotheses are developed concerning purchasing/supplier involvement, strategic purchasing and firm’s financial performance. A model of the hypothesized relationships is offered and empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The model is tested using data collected in 1999. Each factor in the model is measured by a number of scale items. Based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis, an overall fit of the model to the data is achieved. Both convergent and discriminate validity is demonstrated. The research findings reveal that the hypotheses tested in the model are supported. Purchasing/supplier involvement has a positive impact on strategic purchasing, and strategic purchasing has a positive impact on firm’s financial performance. The paper concludes with some research implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.

According to the importance of strategic purchasing as an effective tool for resource allocation and service procurement, this study examines national laws, regulations and other related documents related to the strategic purchasing of health services related to the advanced medical equipment in Iran.

It was a national qualitative document analysis conducted in 2019 applying content analysis approach. The four-step Scott method was used to include the documents in terms of authenticity, credibility, representation and meaningfulness. After retrieving the related documents, they were coded with the implicit and explicit approach. MAXQDA₁₀ was used for content analysis.

The findings show that according to the framework of effective factors on the strategic purchasing of health services, seven main factors are determined as the main essential factors in purchasing advanced medical equipment. These factors consist of health care providers, health service buyers, purchaser and service provider contracts, payment mechanisms, organization and management evaluation of health technology including expensive medical equipment and technology-related.

The study had some limitations as follows: the proposed method should be tested and its feasibility has to be investigated through appropriate tools for Iranian insurance companies and those with the similar settings.

The results of this study can shed more light for policy makers affiliated in Ministry of Health as the main service provider, Ministry of Welfare and the insurance agencies as the main purchasers of health services on paying attention to these seven main themes extracted from the upstream documents and laws and regulations of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The strategic purchasing of expensive high technology-based medical equipment is a necessity for Iranian public health insurance organizations that is emphasized in national documents in the way of implementing this necessity.

This study examines all the laws and regulations and all related documents in the strategic purchasing of health services related to advanced medical equipment, giving an analysis of the most important challenges and requirements of implementing strategic purchasing in the health services provision sector with expensive medical equipment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different patterns of purchasing function configuration, and the relationship between such patterns and organisational performance.

Despite considerable attention, there is little evidence showing the current situation toward the development of purchasing functions within organisations. Through quantitative data collected from 151 UK purchasing executives, cluster analysis is used to uncover and characterize four purchasing function configurations.

Four configurations, termed strategic, capable, celebrity, and undeveloped, were identified according to the characteristics they possess. Significant differences in supplier‐ and organisational‐related performance outcomes were found across these four purchasing function configurations. Purchasing skills were also shown to be a precondition for purchasing to exert influence within the organisation.

A cross‐sectional survey provides limited longitudinal insight into the evolution of purchasing functions. Future research could examine how firms move between purchasing configurations. This study does, however, improve understanding of the different types of purchasing functions, their performance outcomes, and makes recommendations for potential strategies to be adopted for purchasing function improvement.

The findings are useful for practitioners seeking to improve the performance and standing of the purchasing function through identification of the characteristics and potential limitations faced at each phase.

This paper is one of few studies to provide an empirical test of purchasing function configuration, and the implications for organisational performance.