Björn Axelsson

An application‐based classification to understand buyer‐supplier interaction in business services

Purpose – Most existing classifications of business services have taken the perspective of the supplier as opposed to that of the buyer. To address this imbalance, the purpose of this paper is to propose a classification of business services based on how the buying company applies the service with respect to its own business processes.Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers some specific aspects of the process of buying and exchanging business services, focusing on the everyday production and consumption of services as opposed to the initial purchasing and negotiation phases.Findings – Earlier literature has developed similar, albeit less elaborate classifications, but does not provide detailed insight into how such classifications are related to differentiated buyer‐supplier interaction. This classification distinguishes between four business service applications; as a component, semi‐manufacture, instrument or consumable. For each of these four types of services, interaction has to achieve dif...

The role of corporate brand image in the selection of new subcontractors

Purpose – Despite the increased focus on brands in B2B markets, little research to date has focused on understanding the role brands play in different B2B contexts. To make a contribution in this area, the article aims to investigate whether, why and how corporate brand image plays a role in the selection of new subcontractors. This category of firms is particularly challenging to explore from a branding perspective, as their market offering is defined and designed by their customer and, further, not recognized by the customers customer.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative interview study with respondents from nine companies (three subcontractors and six of their customers) was conducted. The interviews were semi‐structured and focused on considerations made by both buyers and sellers in sales and purchasing processes.Findings – The study reveals that corporate brand image can be especially important when buyers need to identify new subcontractors. This process is only partly formalized, and due t...

Purchasing involvement in product development. A framework

Both within academia and practice, the involvement of purchasing and suppliers in product development has attracted considerable attention during the last decade. However, most research is limited to the context of single development projects, focusing on possible short-term contributions such as the reduction of development lead-time. Long-term issues like technological alignment between supplier and manufacturer are relatively ignored. Therefore, this article seeks to develop a coherent framework of specific activities across a number of different management areas within purchasing involvement in product development. Such a framework may help to implement, improve and audit this involvement.

Modern management accounting for modern purchasing

Abstract In this article, the development of management accounting is connected to purchasing and supply management. The accounting system can act as a strong enabler as well as a barrier to the development of purchasing. A number of measures are identified and discussed leading to the conclusion that there are some highly interesting and relevant new techniques available. Using these, it should be possible to foster a stronger relationship focus in the purchasing function, which would enable managers to carry out a segmented approach to purchasing and supply management. Today, however, it would appear that managers largely fail to take advantage of these techniques.

Driving and enabling factors for purchasing involvement in product development

This article is the second in a series of two focusing on the involvement of suppliers and, more specifically, the purchasing function in product development. The first article introduced a framework defining purchasing involvement in product development in terms of a series of specific activities across four different management areas. This second article extends the framework into a basic contingency model by identifying driving and enabling factors that influence the need for and the ability of firms to carry out the various activities from our framework. In that way, it provides indications in which situations certain activities are more important than others and suggestions as to how to enable an organisation to perform purchasing involvement in product development in an effective and efficient way.

Effective buyer‐supplier interaction patterns in ongoing service exchange

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop theory on effective buyer‐seller interaction for different types of business services. A classification of business services which identifies four service types based on how they are used by the buying company is used.Design/methodology/approach – Propositions based on earlier work in this area and validate these empirically by studying interaction in nine ongoing service exchanges at two different buying companies are developed.Findings – For the three service types that could be identified in the case companies, the extent to which companies display a pattern of interaction that is in line with the proposed pattern has a positive effect on service exchange success has been largely found. Some aspects of the proposed patterns, however, seem less critical for success than others, leading to minor revisions in the effective patterns of interaction.Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of this study is that only the interaction patterns for...

Mobilizing marginal resources for public events

Marginal resources are important for organizers of public events. In the present context, marginal resources are defined as resources that providers can offer to events in periods when these resour ...

The role of owners in industrial networks – the case of a steel producer

Purpose – In this paper, the authors will argue that owners as one type among many other types of actors is essential to bring into the picture when analyzing developments in industrial and other kinds of business networks. The direct relationship between owners and the business unit, the firm, is one type of relationship. But owners, as well as the firm as such, also possess several indirect relationships that could be highly relevant in many business network situations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate both direct and indirect relationships when analyzing the role of owners. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical base is coming from an earlier Swedish investigation of the development of a steel company in the course of 75 years. In this study the authors mapped ownership and the role owners had in financial and other terms. The authors also made a detailed investigation of the development of the company in terms of important customers and suppliers, i.e. its business network. In total it...

The development of international purchasing capabilities: a comparative study of the four largest Swedish construction firms

ABSTRACT While there is a growing stream of research addressing purchasing issues, we know little about how the internationalization of purchasing activities unfolds. The study contributes to the sparsely empirically and theoretically substantiated field of international purchasing by, based on empirical support, providing an analytical framework which can improve our understanding of international purchasing by offering an integrated view of a business relationship perspective and a capabilities perspective. The purpose of this article is to track the actual prerequisites behind the development of international purchasing capabilities. In this article, we study the nearly simultaneous implementation of international purchasing strategies in the four largest construction firms in Sweden to be able to compare and contrast the underlying mechanisms and outcomes of these processes. We find that the firms that had developed capabilities incrementally in supplier relationships were better able to reap cost--benefits from international purchasing than firms that had not.