Purpose Though extant literature proposes buyer–seller information sharing as a crucial variable for quality improvement, there is a dearth of empirical understanding of how it affects procurement quality performance. The present study aimed at addressing this knowledge gap by using small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in a developing African economy as an empirical context. Design/methodology/approach The research hypotheses are tested on survey data from 138 SMEs in Ghana using structural equation modeling. Findings Results show that buyer–seller information sharing is positively related to procurement quality performance and that high levels of buyer–seller information sharing lower procurement quality performance. Research limitations/implications Though the study demonstrates that there is a limit to the procurement quality performance benefit of buyer-seller information sharing, it does not empirically analyze the conditions that may relax this limit. Practical implications This research highlights both the bright and dark sides associated with buyer-seller information sharing and how they work out to determine procurement quality performance. It shows that SMEs could optimize procurement quality performance when they pursue a moderate level of buyer–seller information sharing. Originality/value This research advances the sparse literature on the procurement quality performance construct and its determinants within the context of SMEs. Unlike prior research that focuses on information technology, this study explicitly analyzes the role of information sharing in determining procurement (quality) performance and shows that differing levels of buyer–seller information sharing impact procurement quality performance differently.

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Despite the growing research on financial resources within the supply chain of SMEs, our understanding of the relationship between financial resource building efforts and financial resource availability remains lacking. This study draws on attention-based view theory (ABV) to develop and test an argument that heterogeneity in financial resource availability is explained by the differences in SMEs financial resource building effort. The proposed relationship is tested on a sample of 274 SMEs owners in Ghana. Structural Equation Modelling is used to test the hypotheses of the study. Findings from the study indicate that SME financial resources building effort via retained profit, personal savings, family and friends, supplier's credit and bank loan drive financial resource availability. The study findings provide a clear evidence that while financial resource availability is essential to SMEs performance, the effect largely depends on the differences in attention SMEs allocate to building their financial resource base from various sources of finance particularly retained profit and bank loan.

The need to improvise during supply chain disruptions to enhance operational resilience is ever more critical. Yet, managers appear to lack an understanding of how and when improvisation matters. We apply the conservation of resources theory to conceptualize how firms activate spontaneous and creative improvisation during supply chain disruptions and theorize how that relates to operational resilience in low and high supply chain disruption conditions. We test our arguments on primary data from a sample of 259 firms in Ghana. We find that creative improvisation has a positive relationship with operational resilience, and this relationship is stronger in high supply chain disruption conditions. Spontaneous improvisation, on the contrary, is unrelated to operational resilience in both low and high supply chain disruption conditions. These findings indicate that not all types of improvisation contribute to operational resilience, suggesting the need for a nuanced approach to theorizing and applying the improvisation concept in supply chains.