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Faced with increasing competition, the ability to secure and optimise global logistics operations should be regarded as a competitive advantage. In the context of the hitherto little explored field of security and safety programmes, the purpose of this paper is to examine how an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) certificate may affect the creation of a competitive edge for a freight forwarder.

By using the resource-based view as a theoretical background and a qualitative analysis using an interview grid inspired by the balanced scorecard, this research identifies resources and capabilities linked to the AEO certification.

The findings show two specific groups of resources that contribute to the creation of a competitive advantage. The first category is a process-type resource obtained through the AEO certification, which leads to more formalised and better-executed processes. The second relates to the freight forwarder’s knowledge, know-how and relational skills.

This research is developed in a logistics service provider context. It should be equally applied in other contexts and with other methods to provide generalisability.

Considering its contribution to an area of study currently under research, the findings may be useful to practitioners as a decision support tool to assess the value of the AEO certification.

This paper comes in the context of a yet little explored field, despite practitioners’ questions about custom certifications.

Sustainable purchasing and supply management (SPSM) is a lever of sustainable development for companies and remains an interesting research issue that can be analysed from various perspectives. By considering the polymorphic concept of proximity as a theoretical support, this research studies the buyer–supplier dyad and aims to answer the following question. How does the diversity of buyer–supplier dyad relationships influence the SPSM of direct and indirect purchases within a manufacturing company?

The authors used a qualitative approach founded on a matrix analysis to describe buyer–supplier relationships through the prism of the proximity concept. The field of study consists in a single case with embedded units including a manufacturing company and a sample of 13 suppliers of direct and indirect purchases.

The research reveals diverse combinations of proximities that characterise relationships between a buyer and suppliers of several purchasing categories. This diversity of relational contexts influences SPSM in different ways. The authors highlight three SPSM approaches labelled contractual, relational and embedded and describe practices carried out with suppliers as part of the different relational profiles.

The research is developed in a single perspective. To ensure that it can be generalised, it should be applied in other contexts supported by new case studies.

The research provides practitioners with guidelines on building successful buyer–supplier partnerships in a sustainable view. The authors’ findings aid managerial decision-making by validating the necessity of adapting SPSM depending on buyer–supplier relational situations.

This paper offers an original study angle on buyer–supplier relationships based on a proximity analysis. The authors’ research confirms the variety of sustainable purchasing relationships underlined by the literature and can advance the portfolio approach to sustainable purchasing.

There is an increasing awareness among manufacturers to make production more sustainable in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Manufacturers are now urged to not only focus on the business profit but also concern on environment protection by producing green products. However, issues may arise regarding the preferences of customers on green products, which will vary due to the influence of cultural values. This will give an impact on the marketing of green products. The aim of this study is to identify the influence of cultural values on the green products design in Malaysia and Indonesia.

A pretest on the survey instruments was performed to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The collected data were statistically analyzed based on the satisfaction level, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results showed that customer preferences in Malaysia were mostly influenced by uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation and power distance, excluding collectivism and masculinity. In Indonesia, the dimension of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation had significant influence, whereas power distance, masculinity and collectivism dimension had no influence. Eco-label was identified as the most important factor for green products in Malaysia and having product services characteristics factor for product lifetime extension in Indonesia.

For practices, the cultural values and preferred characteristics identified in this study provide valuable information to policymakers and businesses on what draws customers toward green products in Malaysia and Indonesia. This finding can be used as supported data for the policymakers in order to achieve sustainable development goal (SDGs) in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The findings of this study provide valuable information for designers to design products with green characteristics that cater to the consumer market in Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as other countries which may have similar cultural traits.