Consortial benchmarking: a method of academic-practitioner collaborative research and its application in a b2b environment

Purpose of the paper and literature addressed:\ud Development of a new method for academicpractitioner collaboration, addressing the literature on collaborative research\ud \ud Research method:\ud Model elaboration and test with an in-depth case study\ud \ud Research findings:\ud In consortial benchmarking, practitioners and academic researchers form a consortium and together benchmark best-practices firms. Consortial benchmarking includes practitioners as co-researchers, thus facilitating research relevant for both academics and practitioners. Rigorous research informs the entire process since consortial benchmarking collects evidence from multiple sources and uses different comparison techniques. We develop the method and illustrate it in a business-to-business environment with a case that identifies the nature of innovative suppliers\ud \ud Main contribution:\ud Consortial benchmarking combines rigor and relevance and can thus boost the stagnating field of academic-practitioner collaborative research

Boosting supplier innovations by implementing new promotor roles

Successfully implemented innovations in firms often benefit from a set of corporate actors who promote such innovations. This is the essence of promotor theory. However, this theory was designed almost five decades ago, when most innovations were still generated internally in a firm's laboratory. In most cases today, suppliers external to the firm play a crucial role in implementing innovations. The following question thus arises: Do such externally generated innovations actually require the buying firm to have a set of promotors of its own? Relying on a benchmark and the World Café method, our research concludes that a new set of promotors tailored to supplier innovation is needed: the supplier vision promotor; the customer promotor; and a diplomatic promotor. Establishing a dedicated team of promotors may be a key to boost innovations coming from suppliers

Innovating with dominant suppliers:Lessons from the race for laser light

Traditionally, manufacturers could usually choose from several suppliers who would be more than willing to engage in innovation processes with them. However, more often the situation arises that a supplier has a dominant position because of a clear leadership or even exclusivity in a certain technology. How should the buying companies handle such situations when a supplier can choose the customer to collaborate with, rather than cueing in front of the customer's door? This paper focuses on how a buying company may best handle this situation of innovating with dominant suppliers. The methodology used is a case study that compares, from an original equipment manufacturer's perspective, two implemented supplier innovations with different expirations - a success case and a failure. Findings lead to three main propositions: First, firms may benefit from carefully analysing and designing the buyer-supplier constellation in innovation processes and not only the quality of the innovation. Drawing back on attractiveness theory grounded in social exchange theory may provide clues on how to do so. Second, in case of a dominant supplier situation, traditional innovation management processes may fail and need to be amended by a dedicated innovation process with a different order of steps. In the case of supplier dominance, it is essential to first analyse the supplier constellation, and then make the decision for the innovation path to follow - and not the other way around. Third, in the fight for getting access to a supplier's innovation, a speed-up process with the buying company may be a tool for outperforming other buyers competing for the same supplier

The ugly twins: failed global sourcing projects and their substitutes

Purpose of the paper and literature addressed:\ud Analyzing the impact of failed global sourcing projects on the entire commodity group and exploring isomorphism as potential antecedent to the observed phenomenon. The paper is embedded in the global sourcing literature, as well as isomorphism and total cost analysis. \ud \ud Research method:\ud Secondary data analysis.\ud \ud Research findings:\ud 1) Each failed global sourcing project had an “ugly twin”, i.e. the material which was not delivered by the new supplier had to be purchased from another supplier, usually the old supplier which was meant to be replaced. This re-sourcing was associated with poorer commercial conditions.\ud 2) Higher savings expectations corresponded with lower realization rate. We interpret this finding as an expression of the presence of mimetic isomorphism.\ud \ud Main contribution:\ud Exposing the “ugly twins” and empirically testing the isomorphism assumption. Findings ask to expand total cost calculations by including the costs of failed projects. Global sourcing benefits may be over-estimated by previous studies, as they do not seem to deduce the costs of failed projects from overall savings. Firms are alerted that unrealistically high savings expectations are very likely to result in disappointment. Thus projects should preferably be avoided

How to measure competition? The role of price dispersion in B2B supply markets

Since the formation of close relationships with suppliers requires a considerable amount of resources, the capacities for such relationships are limited. Thus, recently, research points into the direction that it might not be conducive to unconditionally engage in strategic buyer-supplier alliances. Specifically, in those cases where there is a vivid competition within the supply market, it might not be necessary to cooperate closely. However, a convenient measurement method for competition has been missing in the literature so far. Accordingly, this conceptual paper translates insights from the field of economics for an application in purchasing and supply management. It is recommended to evaluate the product price dispersion of supplier quotations in order to assess the intensity of competition in supply markets. As a consequence, this conceptual paper paves the way for future research on competition between suppliers. For managers, the proposed method could support the development of efficient purchasing strategies

Advancing purchasing as a design science: Publication guidelines to shift towards more relevant purchasing research

Stange, R., Schiele, H., & Henseler, J. (2022). Advancing purchasing as a design science: Publication guidelines to shift towards more relevant purchasing research. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 28(1), 1-12. [100750]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pursup.2022.100750Due to rapidly changing business environments, purchasing and supply management (PSM) organisations are constantly confronted with new problems impacting organisational performance. PSM research can address these problems through design science research. Design science is also regarded as the science of the artificial. Design science research is a methodology that aims to systematically generate knowledge for the design, synthesis, testing, and evaluation of human-made artefacts (e.g., tools, interventions, policies) that solve practical problems. PSM artefacts such as the purchasing portfolio matrix invented by Kraljic (1983) represent a valuable opportunity to solve problems in the PSM discipline. However, our artificial-intelligence (AI)-based analysis of the discipline's flagship journal, the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management (JPSM), indicates that design-oriented publications in PSM are underrepresented, accounting for less than 4% of the total publications. We argue that existing PSM research should be complemented with more design-oriented research, and address the following research question: How can PSM scholars publish more design-oriented research? Our objectives are to (1) provide arguments for advancing PSM as a design science, (2) nurture a better understanding of design science research as a methodology, and (3) propose publication guidelines that enable researchers to present design-oriented research in a management journal.publishersversionpublishe