•AI leads to a different approach of purchasing, more agile, reactive, and efficient.•AI favors the emergence of intelligent, augmented, and predictive 4.0 purchasing.•Thanks to AI, buyers can focus ...on more strategic and creative purchasing missions.•AI puts purchasing at the heart of innovation.•AI adoption requires a high level of maturity and should not hamper intuition.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can affect all of a company’s functions, not least the purchasing department. In addition to automating and optimizing existing processes, AI opens up new opportunities for purchasers to undertake new, strategic, collaborative, enduring missions. AI enables complex, strategic decision-making in an unpredictable, hostile environment. This article analyzes to what extent AI can improve the performance of the purchasing department. First, a review is undertaken of how AI is used in purchasing. Thereafter, the research follows an exploratory, inductive, and qualitative approach based on a multiple case study of the following technologies: (1) the Synertrade automated international purchasing system; (2) the Silex matching system; (3) SAP Ariba decision support; (4) Jaggaer supplier relations management; and (5) the Ideapoke collaborative ideation and innovative project management platform. The present study’s contributions lie in its redefinition of the purchasing function, of the purchaser’s role, of supplier relationship management policy, and of interdepartmental collaboration, involving, for example, Marketing and R&D.
•We study the link between absorptive capacities (learning) and sustainability in purchasing.•Realized absorptive capacity is important for promoting environmental and social sustainability.•The link ...between sustainability practices and economic purchasing performance is missing in MNCs.•In non-MNCs social sustainability practices appear to have an impact on economic performance.
MNCs are expected to operate in a sustainable fashion. Implementation of sustainability requires the ability to acknowledge external (sustainability-related) knowledge, and to apply it in intra-company activities such as purchasing. We focus on absorptive capacities as potential drivers of sustainability, and investigate the effect that a purchasing function’s capacity to absorb and process knowledge has on social and environmental sustainability practices, and subsequently on economic performance in purchasing. We compare MNCs and non-MNCs using a structural equation model of a large set of survey data from four European countries and find that only realized absorptive capacities impact sustainability practices in purchasing and this impact is smaller in MNCs than in other companies. We suggest that companies respond to the demand for sustainability by strengthening their implementation capabilities: the potential to acquire and transform knowledge within a purchasing function is less relevant, and what matters is its application.
This paper examines the role of ethical leadership in managing purchasing agents’ unethical practices. By focusing on the manager-purchasing agent relationship within a firm's purchasing function, we ...investigate the effect of the manager's ethical leadership on purchasing agents’ unethical behaviors, and explore the moderating role of purchasing agents’ ethical ideology in this relationship. Our scenario-based experiment and survey-based empirical study show that a manager's ethical leadership in a purchasing team plays a critical role in reducing purchasing agents’ unethical behaviors. More importantly, the results reveal that the negative impact of ethical leadership on unethical behaviors is strengthened when the level of purchasing agents’ idealism or relativism is high. In addition, we found that ethical leadership has the strongest negative effect on the unethical behavior of purchasing agents when the agents have high levels of both idealism and relativism.
•Ethical leaders play a critical role in reducing unethical purchasing practices.•Purchaser's idealism moderates effect of ethical leader on unethical purchasing.•Purchaser's relativism moderates effect of ethical leader on unethical purchasing.•Effect of ethical leader on unethical purchasing is strongest for situationistist.
The business-to-business selling function has changed over the years, with more informed and demanding buyers, prompting firms to move toward a more consultative, solution-selling approach. While ...these changes have been the focus of extensive research in the personal selling and sales management domain, the customer side of the interaction dyad requires more examination. Even within the context of the customer side, insufficient attention has been paid to the purchasing function in business-to-business (B2B) selling research. Given the increased importance in customer organizations of the purchasing function, this article presents a literature review that highlights the purchasing function's personal selling and sales management needs and argues that, as the purchasing function becomes more important and its needs evolve, personal selling and sales strategies also need to evolve. The article highlights areas for future research in this domain.
Purpose
The strategic importance of the purchasing function increases, as its task become more dynamic in various interfaces with different suppliers. Changes in these customer–supplier interfaces ...pose specific challenges. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the purchasing function handles the interplay of interface changes.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a qualitative single case study design. Data are collected through observations and interviews conducted before, during and after a concrete change of interface taking place between a buying firm and its suppliers and customers.
Findings
Three main findings are identified to redefine the tasks of the purchasing function. The first concerns the new ways of defining the purchasing tasks. The main issue is to balance tasks with the simultaneous changes influencing other interfaces and relationships. The second is the division and alignment of tasks in intra- and inter-organizational networks with regards to who decides and coordinates what. Third, the inter-connected performance relates to how other actors perform their tasks. For the purchasing function, managing supplier interfaces influences and is influenced by how the firm simultaneously manages its user interface.
Practical implications
For management, a new way to evaluate the performance of the purchasing function is needed by including relationship management and interactive capabilities.
Originality/value
This study contributes with new insights into how managing the dynamics of changing interfaces requires interactively defined purchasing tasks, division and alignment of tasks and inter-connected performance vis-à-vis others in the wider network setting.
Recently, in China, the issue of poor quality construction has drawn much public attention. This problem is related not only to poor quality control on the part of the construction firm, but also to ...the use of inadequate materials and inexperienced subcontractors, that is, to poor quality assurance in the construction supply chain. The purpose of this article is to examine supply chain quality management (SCQM) in the construction industry. Using a case-study approach, this research focuses on a Chinese medium-sized private enterprise in order to determine the most efficient way to conduct a high-quality project when collaborating with material suppliers and subcontractors. To this end, we replicate and extend the SCQM practices to help develop a more refined SCQM conceptual model relevant to the construction industry. Based on the different perspectives of managers and engineers, two frameworks are presented to illustrate (1) the correlation between SCQM and purchasing function (PF), and (2) how to work with material suppliers and subcontractors; the proposed models also show how these aspects will influence and control the quality of projects. Although constrained by the limitations inherent in case-study methodology, this article consolidates the work in one particular area of supply chain management. It also succeeds in meeting two core challenges, namely to explicate the interaction between SCQM and PF, and to provide guidance to construction firms on how to deal with SCQM issues with material suppliers and subcontractors.
The phenomenon of key supply management (KSM) in business companies is far less investigated than the phenomenon of key account management (KAM) which beneficiates, both in practice and in an ...academic context, from a growing interest. This article is based on the empirical analysis of a sample of 10 international companies which have recently launched KSM programmes or are currently working on launching such programs. It examines the difficulties these companies come up against when implementing such programmes and proposes to organize these difficulties around three dimensions: 1) the difficulties in implementing real supplier portfolio approaches; 2) the narrow view of value co-creation with suppliers, and 3) the persistent lack of integration of the purchasing function with other internal functions within the company. The conclusion of the article is that KSM is far from being a mere symmetric phenomenon of KAM. Several implications are then discussed in relation to the implementation of KSM programmes within companies.
► We examine 10 international companies dealing with key supply management programmes. ► We examine the difficulties these companies come up against when implementing such programmes. ► Companies have difficulties in implementing supplier portfolio approaches. ► Companies have a narrow view of value co-creation with suppliers. ► The purchasing function still lacks integration with other internal functions within the company.
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the new role of the purchasing function in the management of the extended enterprise.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses field experience and focus group ...with CPOs.
Findings
The purchasing function can play a key role in its own company business models disruption. Innovation detection and fostering could be managed by the purchasing function, acting as external resources development.
Originality/value
This paper is an original viewpoint article from an author experienced in the field.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to have an impact on every aspect of a business, including the purchasing division. This article analyzes how AI is used in the fulfillment of the ...purchasing function in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, especially SAP editor (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing), and its impact on the system's performance. First, a review is undertaken of how AI is used in different fields in companies. Thereafter, the paper follows a deep research to collect the information on SAP editor from any sources such as industry reports, article ad information systems site webs. The results indicate that the application of AI can be integrated with the purchasing function of ERP systems almost throughout their entire lifecycle, helping overcome many problems that ERP systems are not able to automate and streamline.
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