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Responsible Purchasing: Moving from Compliance to Value Creation in Supplier Relationships

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Sustainable Supply Chains

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Supply Chain Management ((SSSCM,volume 4))

Abstract

Nowadays, supply chain relationships represent an important risk factor to companies due to a cost-driven purchasing orientation. By relentlessly driving down cost in supply chain relationships, supplier relationships may suffer. In addition, through outsourcing and global sourcing, companies have not only created highly complex supply chains, but also supply chains that are not transparent. When irregularities arise, such as child labor and environmental problems in supplier relationships, the company’s reputation may suffer and supply can no longer be secured.

We argue that responsible rather than sustainable purchasing is needed to support the company’s overall business strategy. In doing so, companies need to change their shareholder orientation into a stakeholder orientation. Which is why stakeholder theory is discussed. We furthermore argue that driving responsible purchasing fosters product and process innovation and builds stronger relationships. However, doing so effectively will take time and effort as companies and supplier relationships will move through different stages of maturity. These stages of maturity are discussed, as well as what it takes to move from one stage to another. Our discussions are illustrated by numerous examples taken from best practices of international companies.

The authors are grateful to Dr. Regien Sumo’s comments on earlier versions of this text.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Responsible Purchasing equals in this chapter Green Purchasing, Environmentally Preferable Sourcing, Green Sourcing.

  2. 2.

    See also Chap. 6 by Bateman et al. (2017) for more on sustainability reporting.

  3. 3.

    “Creating value in supply chains : supplier’s impact on the value for customers, society and shareholders” Kibbeling, M.I. (2010) Ph.D. dissertation, Eindhoven University of Technology. The reason why CSR drives innovation in supply chain relationships is that imposing CSR requirements on incumbent suppliers reduces their product and process solution space. In order to fit the buyer’s smaller solution space new products and process solutions are necessary.

  4. 4.

    See Van Weele and Vivanco (2014).

  5. 5.

    The following text is derived from: Van Weele and Van Tubergen (2013), p. 18.

  6. 6.

    See for other examples Walmart (http://goo.gl/U8wzHT) and IKEA (http://goo.gl/flXzdM).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. TU Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Netherlands

    Arjan van Weele Ph.D.

  2. Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Kristine van Tubergen M.Sc.

Authors
  1. Arjan van Weele Ph.D.
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  2. Kristine van Tubergen M.Sc.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arjan van Weele Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Axe Logistique Terre Mer Risque, Ecole de Management de Normandie, Le Havre, France

    Yann Bouchery

  2. Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Charles J. Corbett

  3. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jan C. Fransoo

  4. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Tarkan Tan

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© 2017 Yann Bouchery, Charles J. Corbett, Jan C. Fransoo, and Tarkan Tan

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van Weele, A., van Tubergen, K. (2017). Responsible Purchasing: Moving from Compliance to Value Creation in Supplier Relationships. In: Bouchery, Y., Corbett, C., Fransoo, J., Tan, T. (eds) Sustainable Supply Chains. Springer Series in Supply Chain Management, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29791-0_11

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