تغییر انتخاب تامین کننده و شیوه های ارتباط: فرایند سرایت

Purchasing managers offer different opinions when asked which are the driving forces from the situational environment that determine the organisation of the purchasing function. Their opinions of the supplier selection process and criteria to be used also differ. All these are explained by differences in (1) their personal past trajectory through various networks, determining their personal interpretation of the real world; (2) their position in the present company, described as the negotiated social order; (3) the company's world-view on ‘how things have to be done, including purchasing’: the socially negotiated order. These aspects are part of a process of contagion and determine the nature of the actual supplier relations.

Companies operate in different industries, in different markets, on different segments with different customer requirements. Taken from a network perspective, they belong to different industrial and territorially embedded networks following different paradigms (Camagni, 1991; Kamann, 1998). They tend to show different strategies and internal settings, assumed to be best fitted with the particular type of environment they operate in. This supports both the contingency theory (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967) and the congruency theory (Nadler and Tushman, 1979). All these differences affect the way purchasing activities are organised, which corresponds with findings that firms display different purchasing behaviour in different circumstances, including their selection criteria and supplier management. To get a better understanding of this process and its underlying logic, a long-term research project was started on the external determinants of the purchasing function. In the project, the strategy of the company on a particular market segment is assumed to determine the purchasing function. Put differently: the purchasing function is considered as a means to ‘use’ suppliers to meet customer demand. This also means that the overall views of the total company on ‘how to do things’ are a starting point for the question ‘how are we doing things in purchasing’. Given this approach, the research question was “which external factors influence the type of choices made that—at the end—result in a particular type of purchasing function”. Elsewhere (Kamann et al., 2001), we present the first results of this project. Literature study and interviews with consultants and managers showed that complexity of the environment and products, dynamics or volatility of the environment, the degree of innovativeness of the company together with the choice of technology (process and discrete production versus project production) were the major discriminating factors. Even while the outcome of the first project was interesting, two other observations were made. First of all, that purchasing managers and consultants (a) did not agree on the importance and role of external factors and (b) did not describe the resulting actions in identical operational terms. In other words, both what managers perceived as important and how they acted upon that perception differed. The differences between opinions, actions taken and terminology were not a simple reflection of differences in external factors. Even within a single company, differences were found. A second observation was that only 2 out of 10 cases studied fitted the typology used, which was based on theoretical assumptions and expert views. While some of the purchasing managers in the other companies did agree with what the purchasing policy should be, they did not act accordingly. This made us wonder what (purchasing) managers actually (1) perceive as “influencing factors” of the purchasing function; (2) do as a result of what they perceived. One of the areas where they seem to differ in their actions is the supplier selection and the consequent relationship with (potential and existing) suppliers. In order to deal with these two questions, we start with the question how managers—or people in general—perceive their environment and ‘decode’ signals from that environment. We continue with a description of the factors that influence this perception process. This will be put in a broader perspective by looking at the interdependence between perception and context. The model presented identifies the factors that play a role in selection and supply relation behaviour. Differences in these factors can explain managerial differences in behaviour towards suppliers and the related supplier selection criteria.

We raised two questions: (1) how does it come that (purchasing) managers do not agree on the importance, nature and role of external factors that determine the way purchasing should be organised; (2) how does it come that these managers do not agree on the resulting actions to be taken. The conceptual framework presented points at the impact of the subjective perception of managers and incorporates the process of contagion of ideas. This framework incorporates the following factors: (1) their personal interpretative scheme, conditioned by their personal trajectory through various networks they were and are part of during their life—the over-time ‘habitus’ they were part of; (2) their status in the present company, described as the negotiated social order; (3) the company view on ‘how things have to be done, including purchasing’: the socially negotiated order. Social settings that differ in their world-view (the ‘habitus’ in general terms and the Socially Negotiated Order at the organisational level) lead to differentiated conditioning factors that determine interpretation schemes of individuals taking action. Differences in interpretation schemes of individual managers result in noticing different ‘signals’ and taking different subsequent actions. The SNO is in its turn made up by the participants of the organisation. The position of the individual in a firm—the Negotiated Social Order—determines to what extent he or she can influence the accepted or shared SNO. The presented model will be used as a frame of reference to understand and analyse how and why supplier relations are managed whilst interviewing practitioners. Further research will focus on (1) the actual influence of individual trajectories through networks on perception; (2) the role and determinants of status in the present social network (the firm the individual works for); (3) whether factors other than presently included in the model play a significant role.