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This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

This paper aims to explore factors influencing suppliers' acceptance, integration challenges, expected benefits and support from customers when implementing a customer-introduced digital supply chain system.

The study investigates the perspective of suppliers using a mixed methodology approach that combines qualitative interviews with a large-scale quantitative survey conducted among 220 internationally located suppliers of an automotive-industrial firm.

As a result, the authors identified 11 factors that drive suppliers' acceptance of customer-introduced digital supply chain systems. These factors have been ranked based on their importance. The top three important factors identified were the digital system being provided at no cost to the suppliers, the system's ability to save time and the system offering benefits to the suppliers.

Further research can be conducted to validate the perspective of suppliers in other industries. Additionally, future studies can investigate the effectiveness of fulfilling these acceptance factors within an actual digital integration setup.

Companies can leverage these insights to accelerate their digital supply chain integration efforts. The insights on acceptance factors, challenges, benefits and support expected by suppliers can serve as a valuable guide for policy and decision makers within the industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the perspective of suppliers in the integration of a customer's digital supply chain. By including the supplier's perspective, this study makes a significant contribution to the academic literature about supply chain digitalisation.