مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله مدیریت خرید و تامین – Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management

Today’s business environment is characterized by globalization, which refers to reduced trading barriers, and better connecting between production, communication, and technology across the world (Hanna and Jackson, 2015). Globalization is opening up new markets and possibilities (Schneider et al., 2013) and is facing purchasing and supply chain managers with new strategic challenges (Quintens et al., 2006). Companies have applied global sourcing, since the early 1980s (Nordigarden et al., 2015). The procurement of products across the globe is an increasing trend due to economic developments (Christopher et al., 2011). Purchasing strategies are increasingly taking place within a global perspective (Grossman and Helpman, 2005) and global sourcing is emerging due to the competitive advantages it may create for a company (Quintens et al., 2006). In a pursuit of competitive advantage, companies prefer to source globally rather than regionally (Gualandris et al., 2014). Many practitioners seem to believe that global sourcing is either inevitable and/or beneficial for firms (Horn et al., 2014).

It is widely recognized that, in many of today’s globalizing industries, purchasing is one of the strategic functions with the highest potential to impact the long term profitability of a company (Quintens et al., 2006). Surprisingly, many companies redefined their productions and marketing strategies to cope with the increasing globalization and chose to somehow neglect their global purchasing strategies and activities leaving attractive improvement opportunities largely unrealized (Quintens et al., 2006; Trent and Monczka, 2003a). Due to the strategic benefits and risks of global sourcing this is something that must be planned and organized at the highest corporate level (Samli et al., 1998).

Even though it is widely recognized that global sourcing is a way to gain new competitive advantages, several studies have failed to show any significant business results due to the implementation of global sourcing (Steinle and Schiele, 2008). It is therefore not to be said that global sourcing will always deliver clear results. Global sourcing strategies may have unintended consequences, such as incompetent suppliers (Nordigander et al., 2015) and increased exposure to quality risks from reduced control and visibility in the supply chain (Steven et al., 2014). Global sourcing is difficult and companies regularly underestimate its complexity (Hultman et al., 2012). Perhaps for this reason global sourcing is one of the most widely discussed topics within firms and has received extensive academic attention (Schneider et al., 2013; Steinle and Schiele, 2008).