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The purpose of this research is to develop an understanding of how purchasing can become meaningfully involved in complex business-to-business service purchases.

A single in-depth case study method of an exemplar organization was applied to better understand the purchasing function’s role in adding to the value proposition in complex, non-traditional business-to-business service purchases.

Powerful allies or advocates can mediate purchasing involvement in service procurement. However, once the involvement is initiated, purchasing must make a positive contribution with respect to the specific needs and expectations of the budget owner to retain its influence.

This research extends institutional theory to show how powerful allies or advocates can mediate purchasing involvement in the complex services spend.

This study describes the potential impact of purchasing’s involvement in complex services spend and highlights the opportunities for purchasing managers to improve supplier management and drive out additional costs.

For the business practitioner, this research provides evidence regarding how individual functions can gain influence in the organization. A conceptual model describes the meaningful involvement of purchasing in complex business-to-business service purchases.

The purpose of this paper is to compile a set of articles tackling supply chain issues in BOP contexts that address both demand and supply. Solutions are needed for global sustainability problems from medical aid and food availability to the ability to participate in supply chains for the global poor.

The accepted articles in the special issue used a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to answer research questions in a variety of base of the pyramid (BOP) contexts. These approaches and results distinguish between demand (BOP market) and supply, or base of the chain (BOC), perspectives.

The findings in the eight accepted marticles are interesting and applicable across different BOP contexts. Compilation of the articles into the special issue and the accompanying editorial led to a comprehensive future research agenda that addresses demand-side issues by investigating the customers in BOP markets, and supply-side issues focusing on the suppliers and intermediaries (BOC) who supply BOP markets. Future research ideas include a focus on supply chain design issues situated at the intersection of the demand (BOP) and the supply (BOC) concerns that address the needs of the world’s poorest populations.

All of the selected articleshave societal implications related to addressing the needs of BOP populations. Many of these articles also have economic and environmental implications, the other two pillars of the triple bottom line. The detailed future research agenda developed in this editorial presents implications for researchers working in emerging and BOP communities to push research forward and further develop the foundational literature in the BOP context.

From a practical standpoint, each of the eight articles presents ideas for businesses that help address the needs of the global poor while enhancing global sustainability performance. The editorial summarizes these implications and provides new directions and examples of success in the BOP context. Managers are provided with techniques to address the supply and demand side of these growing markets.

The overall conceptual framework and positioning of the final papers into the BOP market, BOC suppliers and a combination of the two is novel and helps provide guidance to both scholars and managers.

This paper investigates the suitability of fuzzy-logic-based support tools for initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions.

Two fuzzy-logic-based support tools are developed together with experts from a Swedish manufacturing firm. The first uses a complete rule base and the second a reduced rule base. Sixteen inference settings are used in both of the support tools.

The findings show that fuzzy-logic-based support tools are suitable for initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions. The developed support tools are capable of suggesting whether a reshoring decision should be further evaluated or not, based on six primary competitiveness criteria. In contrast to existing literature this research shows that it does not matter whether a complete or reduced rule base is used when it comes to accuracy. The developed support tools perform similarly with no statistically significant differences. However, since the interpretability is much higher when a reduced rule base is used and it require fewer resources to develop, the second tool is more preferable for initial screening purposes.

The developed support tools are implemented at a primary-criteria level and to make them more applicable, they should also include the sub-criteria level. The support tools should also be expanded to not only consider competitiveness criteria, but also other criteria related to availability of resources and strategic orientation of the firm. This requires further research with regard to multi-stage architecture and automatic generation of fuzzy rules in the manufacturing reshoring domain.

The support tools help managers to invest their scarce time on the most promising reshoring projects and to make timely and resilient decisions by taking a holistic perspective on competitiveness. Practitioners are advised to choose the type of support tool based on the available data.

There is a general lack of decision support tools in the manufacturing reshoring domain. This paper addresses the gap by developing fuzzy-logic-based support tools for initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions.

This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.

Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.

In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).

Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.

This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.

The last decades have seen manufacturing and services offshoring on the rise, often motivated by low prices and without consideration of other important criteria such as additional cost measures and risk. With wages in former low-cost countries and automation/robotization increasing, these decisions are increasingly contested. Re-evaluations of “shoring” decisions inherently create a need to re-examine theoretical and academic contributions to this rapidly changing phenomenon. Therefore, the special issue sought manuscripts that added to the exciting and dynamic body of knowledge on “rightshoring”. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper starts out by delimiting outsourcing/insourcing and offshoring/reshoring as part of a conceptual “rightshoring” framework to establish a common terminology and context for the insights gathered in the special issue. It illustrates that “shoring” options can be classified along geographical and governance dimensions.

Both the geographical and governance dimensions are part of the rightshoring decision which is an important conceptual foundation for this special issue, as it invited insightful pieces on all of these phenomena (e.g. outsourcing, insourcing, offshoring, reshoring), acknowledging that these decisions are embedded in the same context – firms making governance and location decisions. Therefore, papers 1-4 primarily focus on offshoring, whereas paper 5 focuses on insourcing and paper 6 on reshoring. Their main findings are summarized in Table II.

Suggestions for future research out of the six papers are summarized in Table III. There is ample opportunity to further shed light on these suggestions as well as to cover parts of the “rightshoring” framework presented, that remain less covered here (e.g. insourcing and/or reshoring).

The array of potential “rightshoring” options fosters clarity about the phenomena studied and their implications. The main practical implications of the six papers are summarized in Table II.

The overall conceptual framework highlights the positioning of the final papers included into the special issue and provides guidance to scholars and managers alike.

The purpose of this paper is to examine managerial perspectives in both buyer and supplier firms implementing environmental initiatives in their supply chains, and explore the impact of environmental initiatives on buyer-supplier relationships.

A qualitative, grounded theory approach is used as the methodological approach to this research, including 15 in-depth interviews with managers from buyer and supplier firms implementing environmental initiatives in their supply chains to gain multiple perspectives of the buyer-supplier relationships.

The results suggest that implementing environmental initiatives within the supply chain changes the buyer-supplier relationship from transactional to collaborative, shifting from a commodity-focused purchase to a more strategic purchase as environmental initiatives are implemented.

Although both buyer and supplier perspectives were considered, matched dyads were not used; researchers should continue to provide a holistic perspective of the phenomenon with dyadic data. Additionally, the use of a qualitative research approach suggests a lack of generalizability of results, and therefore researchers should further test the propositions.

Implementing environmental initiatives within the supply chain may require different approaches to supply management and development for long-term success. Suppliers should recognize that the capability to implement environmental initiatives with their customers is a differentiator. The nuances involved in managing the implementation of environmental initiatives between firms can be better managed by collaboratively developing metrics specifically related to the environment.

Previous research in environmental supply chain management has examined drivers and barriers of implementing environmental initiatives with suppliers, but fails to address the relationship dynamics involved when implementing environmental initiatives between organizations. This research begins to fill that gap.

Organizations increasingly manage innovation projects jointly with suppliers to use external resources to fill internal competencies. However, little is known about the practices of how companies configure internal and external resources to enhance competitiveness. Drawing on resource orchestration theory, this study aims to propose a novel approach to explain organizational performance using purchasing orchestration (PO) as an antecedent. The paper then tests an empirical model to assess the impact of PO practices on innovation and financial performance.

Cross-sectional survey data from 247 supply chain managers are used to test hypotheses relating PO to performance. SPSS PROCESS is applied to test conditional direct and indirect effects.

The positive impact of PO practices on innovation and financial performance is confirmed. Results indicate an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO) can strengthen the positive relationship between PO and financial performance. Structuring, bundling and leveraging external resources are introduced as new organizational capabilities.

This research is based on cross-sectional data, and unidimensional constructs are used.

This research guides managers on the innovation process in light of the growing importance of external resources. The manuscript highlights the role of strategic purchasing in establishing new resource capabilities as a competitive advantage.

This research provides new insights into the relationship between purchasing practices and organizational performance and helps better understand the implications of orchestrating supply chain resources. A novel construct, PO, is introduced as a theoretical basis for studying supply chain-enabled innovation.

This impact pathway manuscript motivates and guides operations and supply chain management (OSCM) researchers to deeply consider the role of suppliers in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction. It prompts a reconsideration and update of their understanding of climate change in their research and the positive influence that research could have, specifically on reducing GHG emissions and slowing climate disasters.

The authors use qualitative research methods, including a literature review, interviews with NGOs, focus groups with purchasing professionals and in-depth case studies.

The results provide insights into purchasing’s role in the engagement of suppliers in GHG emissions reduction efforts as organizations begin to advance the sustainability journey toward suppliers’ emissions reduction and their contribution to improvements in supply chain GHG emissions. The paper calls for more actionable academic research that can contribute to theory and practice.

This impact pathway article discusses how the topic of GHG supply chain emissions reduction is viewed in both research and practice. The current dire state of the environment and purchasing and supply chain involvement in GHG emissions reduction initiatives points to the need to develop impactful research. The paper closes with guidance on potential future research opportunities.

The pressure on companies to reduce their GHG emissions has never been more significant, and companies have never before made as many public commitments to reduce their GHG emissions both internally and across the supply chain as they are making today. Managers must truly understand their role in reducing GHG emissions and their supply chain implications.

GHG emissions reduction and associated climate change are top issues on the global climate agenda. Reducing emissions (and related climate change) has important positive implications for human health. This is especially true among underrepresented communities, which tend to be disproportionately impacted by living and working in weather-exposed climates with poor air quality.

The authors aim to stimulate new research and discussion through this pathway paper. The climate crisis is real, and the world is missing its GHG reduction targets. If companies limit their efforts and continue to make excuses, the world will continue its path to climate disaster.

Driven by increasing concerns for sustainable development and digitalization, intermediaries have emerged as relevant actors who can help supply chains tackle grand societal challenges. They can also trigger significant changes in structure, shape and governance models of supply chains. The goal of this research is to advance the understanding of supply chain intermediation and digital governance as coordinating mechanisms for enabling multi-level collective action to address the world's grand challenges.

This is a conceptual research paper that uses a vignette approach, where real examples are described to help question and expand theoretical insights and provide a basis for future research. The examples are drawn from past and ongoing extensive primary and secondary data collection efforts in diverse types of supply chains.

Three contexts are proposed to illustrate how intermediaries and digital governance can play a key role in helping supply chains tackle grand challenges. The first and second context highlight the differences between material and support flow intermediaries in a triadic supply chain relationship. The third context illustrates intermediation within a multi-level network which can be industry-specific or span across industries. The three contexts are evaluated on the level of intervention, the focus on material or support flows, and traditional or digital governance. The specific Sustainable Development Goals which can be tackled through intermediary intervention are also indicated.

Intermediaries are often hidden actors in global supply chains and have received limited attention in the academic literature. The conceptual foundation provided in this manuscript serves as the basis for future research opportunities. Three main avenues for further research in this domain are proposed: (1) novel forms of intermediation beyond economic and transactional arrangements; (2) novel forms of digital governance; and (3) translating multi-level collective action into sustainable development outcomes. Research on intermediation driven by sustainable development and digitalization trends can spur empirical advances in sustainable supply chain and operations management with important societal impact.

This study aims to explore and theorize value gaps within value chain management (VCM) by extending the service quality gap model to the context of global manufacturing value chains.

Drawing upon a case study of a small, family-owned Swedish furniture wholesaler, Alpha, this research adapts the service quality gap model and integrates it into the VCM framework. The investigation examines the value creation and delivery processes across a network of actors, highlighting how various gaps emerge at different stages of the value chain.

The study identifies and describes several value gaps, including those related to consumer understanding, manufacturing capabilities and coordination across the value chain. Value creation gaps arise from poor communication about consumer needs and product features, whereas value delivery gaps are mainly tied to manufacturing capacity and material restrictions. These gaps can result in misalignment between consumer expectations and the delivered value.

Although this study provides insights into the emergence of value gaps, further research is needed to determine the magnitude and reduction strategies for these gaps. In addition, understanding how consumers evaluate new products remains a critical area for investigation.

The research highlights the significance of a coordinated approach to managing value creation and delivery processes. It underscores the need for companies to capture accurate consumer data, consider manufacturing capabilities and engage in effective coordination with various actors in the value chain.

By addressing value gaps, companies can enhance consumer satisfaction and minimize potential dissatisfaction caused by misalignment between consumer expectations and delivered value. This, in turn, can lead to improved relationships with consumers and other actors within the value chain.

This research offers a novel perspective on value gaps in VCM, extending the service quality gap model to the realm of manufacturing. It underscores the importance of managing both value creation and delivery processes for enhancing competitive advantage in a global market.