Managing Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Empirical Patterns of Strategy Formulation in Industrial Purchasing (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The industrial purchasing process is complex and involves many interrelated decisions made in a complex environment. To help buyers (1) manage a high number of purchases in various environments, the field of purchasing has relied on classification schemes since the early 1980s, primarily purchasing portfolio models (e.g., Kraljic 1983). These models are prescriptive in nature and built on the premise that the context surrounding categories of similar purchases dictates a unique relationship strategy, and that adopting this strategy will improve performance. Since these models have not been empirically validated, it is difficult to evaluate the extent to which companies have implemented the strategies prescribed by the models, and the degree to which following these strategies leads to better performance. By extension, it raises questions about how buyers rationalize the high number of purchases they manage.