Purchasing strategy development: A multi-level review

The action research cycle reloaded: Conducting action research across buyer-supplier relationships

“…Accordingly, whenever the business context changes, the entire supply chain needs to adapt and organisations are required to realign their supply bases. The fact that organisations buy differently by category further complicates this issue, i.e., the acquisition of different sets of goods or services from suppliers requires different purchasing strategies (Luzzini et al, 2012;Hesping and Schiele, 2015). Therefore, the need to define and redefine the category purchasing strategy over time and coherently manage buyersupplier relationships, makes common PSM practices highly dynamic (Eggert et al, 2006;Terpend et al, 2008).…”

Tactics at the category level of purchasing and supply management: sourcing levers, contingencies and performance

“…Further empirical investigation of what tactics and underlying activities category managers employ would be interesting" (Hesping and Schiele, 2015, p. 148). However, to enable these investigations, sourcing levers require more explicit conceptualisation as well as a method of measurement (Cox, 2014;Hesping and Schiele, 2015;Luzzini and Ronchi, 2011).…”

“…In the past, tactics for purchasing strategy implementation were typically considered for the whole purchasing function encompassing the entire range of materials and buyer-supplier relationships (Hesping and Schiele, 2015) (Karjalainen and Salmi, 2013). Recently however, it became generally accepted that "not all materials and buyer-supplier relationships are to be managed the same way" (Karjalainen and Salmi, 2013, p. 114).…”

“…Each sourcing category, e.g., 'metal sheets', 'leather', 'cables' etc., groups similar materials or services purchased from an overlapping group of suppliers (Cousins et al, 2008b;Horn et al, 2013;Monczka et al, 2008). To achieve cost savings, innovation and other performance goals, each sourcing category requires a tailored set of tactics which have been named 'sourcing levers' (Hesping and Schiele, 2015;Horn et al, 2013;Luzzini et al, 2012;Schiele et al, 2011a;Schuh et al, 2011;Schumacher et al, 2008). Tactical sourcing levers have an immediate practical relevance as they directly address actions that decision makers can take to achieve performance targets (CuervoCazurra et al, 2013).…”

“…In the past, research on purchasing strategies and tactics focused on the overall company or individual products. Rather little has been done to better understand sourcing tactics at the category level of purchasing (Ateş, 2014;Hesping and Schiele, 2015;Karjalainen and Salmi, 2013). Relevant research has been prevented inasmuch as the concept of sourcing levers appears to be only loosely defined in contemporary literature.…”