Challenges to the Development of Strategic Procurement: A Meta‐Analysis of Organizations in the Public and Private Sectors

• Author: Scott Parfitt,Chris Lee,Gareth R.T. White,Rachel Mason‐Jones
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2061
• Date: 01 May 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Strat. Change 25: 285–298 (2016)

Published online in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2061

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic Change: Briengs in Entrepreneurial Finance

Strategic Change

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2061

Challenges to the Development of Strategic

Procurement: A Meta‐Analysis of Organizations in

the Public and Private Sectors1

Gareth R.T. White

University of South Wales, UK

Scott Partt

University of South Wales, UK

Chris Lee

University of South Wales, UK

Rachel Mason‐Jones

University of South Wales, UK

Enabling the development of strategic procurement has long been recognized as

contributing to an effective organization, but companies in both the public and

private sector still seem to nd it challenging, and there appears to be a systemic

Cycle of Impotence.

Procurement has evolved considerably since its recognition as primarily a manu-

facturing‐sector discipline in the mid‐twentieth century (Ammer, 1974; Porter,

1985; Reynolds and ompson, 2008; Tassabehji and Moorhouse, 2008). Origi-

nally dened as simply involving the acquisition of goods and services (Compton

and Jessop, 1995), it underwent the greatest change during the 1980s and 1990s

due to rising cost pressures in an increasingly global market (Porter, 1985; Ellram

and Carr, 1994; Ellegaard and Ritter, 2006; Rozemeijer, 2008). It is now widely

recognized as a strategically signicant function that is capable of driving and

delivering competitive advantage (Landeros and Monczka, 1989; Syson, 1989;

Carter and Narasimhan, 1996; Tan et al., 1998; Spekman et al., 1999; Hum-

phreys, 2001; Ellram and Liu, 2002; Hendricks and Singhal, 2002; Mol, 2003;

Lysons and Farrington, 2006; Paulraj et al., 2006; M O’Brien, 2010; Ubeda

et al., 2015).

Procurement has clearly demonstrated its rise to strategic importance (Novack

and Simco, 1991; Burt and Doyle, 1993; Ellram and Carr, 1994; Carr and

Smeltzer, 1997; Tassabehji and Moorhouse, 2008). Yen and Yen (2012), for

1 JEL classication code: L14.

The training and development of

procurement staff in the public

and private sector needs careful

consideration.

Non‐procurement staff and

management need better

awareness of the strategic

benets that procurement is

capable of delivering.

The usefulness of the models of

strategic procurement is an area

that requires further research.