Demand for organic food products has grown at rates as high as 20% since the 1990s. Organic grains compose 11% of total organic food demand, and are used in livestock production which represents 43% of organic food demand. Though the demand for organic grains is arguably increasing, domestic production of organic grains is lagging. Producers in the U.S. are hesitant to transition to certified organic grain production for a number of reasons. However, a lack of information pertaining to the organic grains market is one of the most prominent barriers to entry. One method that may provide insight into marketing opportunities available to organic grain producers is to create classifications of organic grain buyers. These classifications may allow for the comparison of business demographics, perceptions of the organic grain market, relationship formation and maintenance factors, and characteristics of purchasing agreements across buyer classifications. These comparisons would allow producers to identify potential marketing opportunities by providing insight regarding types of assistance offered by buyers, how to form a relationship with buyers, types of purchasing agreements used, and purchasing agreement characteristics and requirements. Producers would then be able to identify appropriate buyers for their respective situations based on times contracts are signed, payment timing, storage and transportation requirements, and the amount of organic practice documentation buyers require. Similar classifications have been proposed for organic producers, but, to date, no such classification exists for organic buyers. This work proposes two classifications of organic buyers. First, a classification of committed organic buyers versus pragmatic organic/pragmatic conventional buyers is motivated by similar classifications of organic producers found in previous works. Secondly, this work also introduces a classification of buyers that are sellers versus end-users of organic grains. Literature has suggested that the type of organic grain buyer (seller or end-user) gives rise to differences in functionality regarding interacting with producers and purchasing agreement characteristics. A sample of 45 organic grain buyers in the Midwest was utilized to characterize business demographics, perceptions of the organic grain market, relationship factors, and purchasing agreement characteristics on the two aforementioned categorization of organic grain buyers. A mixed methodology approach was utilized involving data collection via phone interviews and an online questionnaire. Initial data analysis suggests that data from the two data collection methods statistically differed in some measures of business demographics, perceptions of the organic grains market, and types of assistance offered to producers. This suggests that buyers responding to a phone interview may be more willing to assist producers and have more positive perceptions of the organic market. Thus, each analysis separates phone interview and online questionnaire responses. Due to a small sample size, means comparisons were utilized for the proposed categorizations of buyers. Data were found to not adhere to the normality assumption, requiring the use of nonparametric methods. A Chi-square test was conducted for binary variables, while a Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test was utilized for continuous and categorical variables. Results suggest that committed organic grain buyers are smaller in terms of gross sales than pragmatic organic/conventional buyers. Fewer committed organic grain buyers require the grain supplier to pay for grain delivery when compared to pragmatic buyers. Both the comparison of committed organic versus pragmatic buyers and the comparison of sellers versus end-users suggest that there is a bifurcation in organic grain buyers, indicating potential conventionalization within the organic grain industry. Additionally, both categorizations also indicate the buyers anticipate future supply and demand to both increase, but do not expect future price to increase. Thus, it can be concluded that buyers believe future supply will increase at a greater rate than demand, decreasing price. Alternatively, buyers may expect future supply and demand to grow proportionally, keeping price constant. Though the sample is representative of the population of buyers present, the small sample size suggests results of this work should be interpreted with caution.

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Despite a general consensus concerning the relevance of supply partnerships to agility, the literature reveals disagreements and contradictions regarding their characteristics and, in particular, their duration. This is, whether partnerships in an agile strategy should be long-term (strategic partnerships) or short-term (agile partnerships). The research joins this debate by investigating the types and characteristics of supply partnerships to achieve agility. The underlying premise of the work is that the type of supply partnership is contingent on the degree of turbulence an agile strategy is designed to face. The research was carried out in the fashion industry, given the relevance of agility in this industry. Specifically, the research focused the supply partnerships developed by the footwear companies in the Macerata-Fermo district, the largest footwear district in Italy. The focus on district companies allow the comparison of several companies sharing a very similar business context, allowing a better control of external variables and increasing the internal validity of the study. The field research consisted of a preliminary survey on agility drivers and agile capabilities in the Macerata-Fermo footwear district, followed by an in-depth investigation on supply partnerships using multiple embedded cases studies. Overall six medium-large footwear companies have been analysed in their supply relationships with respect to five key supply categories. For each supply category, the buyer view of the focal firms has been complemented with a view from the supplier side. In total the fieldwork is built upon 30 interviews with 22 informants from 18 companies for a total of more than 23 hours of interviews. In all cases, except two, the key informant was owner, CEO or general manager of the company, eventually supported by another company manager. In two cases, the interviews data have been strengthened by a longitudinal analysis of purchase orders over eight years. The fieldwork highlights that agility drivers and agile capabilities impact on the footwear companies’ decision of developing agile supply partnerships. Specifically footwear companies that are under the pressure of high-turbulence agility drivers (here represented by a high collection renewal rate) and that have developed strong agile capabilities (here represented by a local supply network and a purchase orders postponement) choose agile supply partnerships with respect to supply categories that are sensitive to the fashion trends and therefore difficult to be sourced in a stable way – season after season – from the same suppliers. The main contribution to theory is related to the characteristics of supply partnerships in an agile strategy and specifically to the apparent paradox of “high-involvement & short- term” relationships (i.e. agile supply partnerships). In spite of the presence of time compression diseconomies in building up partnership and of the loss of relational (non- redeployable) benefits in closing down partnerships, scenarios of high-turbulence can give companies an incentive to look for short-term partnerships. Such finding can support a wider claim that different levels of turbulence call for different agility strategies requiring different capabilities and practices. The main contribution to practice is related to the way agile partnerships are selected, started and ended. Given that many industries are facing an increase in market turbulence, it appears that many companies – even outside the fashion industry – might have to learn how to balance high-involvement supply relationships with respect to a shorter time horizon.

By the end of 20th century many industries including automotive supply industry have undergone significant merger and acquisition activity. Mergers and acquisitions have led to geographical expansions of OEM’s (Origininal Equipment Manufacturer) across country borders and across continents. This tendency can be explained by the pressure to manufacture better equipments and less expensive vehicles which lead to specialization and internationalization of the truck industry. Plus, these consolidation trends are still actual phenomena in truck industry and can bring structural and strategic changes in the supply chain. Apparently. these trends bring a challenge for automotive suppliers, which is how to sustain competitive market position after the merger of important customers. By using the example of Scania and MAN consolidation, this research adopts case-study method with qualitative approach. The intent is to clarify how the buyer–supplier re-lationship is influenced by post-merger sourcing strategy in the automotive industry, with the purpose to investigate and analyze supplier strategic response mechanisms against pos-sible impacts of post-merger sourcing strategy in truck industry. The findings emphasize the importance of sourcing strategy changes in achieving the motives of the merger. We also identify a set of specific supplier selection criteria that appear to cause changes in the sourcing strategy of merged OEMs which, ultimately, influ-ence their purchase decisions.Then it is observed that dimensions like interaction, power-balance, and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships vary with regards to sourcing strategy changes. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of the strategic reponse mechanisms like business reengineering and restructuring through which suppliers can improve their market-related performance and better postion themselves in front of the merging customers.

The research presented in this thesis has focussed on exploring buyer- supplier relationships from a human perspective. To date, researchers across the globe have studied buyer-supplier relationships and endeavoured to find means to try to make them better. This has led to many new relationship development programmes initiated by companies and new concepts introduced by academics for the betterment of buyersupplier relationships. The focus of academics has been in trying to study buyersupplier relationships from various factors, viz. power, opportunistic behaviour, unethical behaviour, partnerships, collaborations, etc. All these endeavours have focussed on using technology or business processes in order to streamline operations and create environments, which would foster partnerships or collaborations. One aspect not usually given prominence in these studies has been the presence of humans in the relationship as representatives of the transacting companies. Giving this more focus, the researcher feels that organisational culture plays a very strong role in the way organisations operate, and when two organisations transact with each other the individual culture is bound to play a role in the way the transaction is conducted. The individual culture of the organisation also depends upon the humans in the organisation. Since, the focus of the research was on exploring the buyer-supplier relationships from a human perspective, the research sought this perspective from people working in purchasing or sales functions in different companies. The information was collected by conducting "Phenomenological Interviews" with focus on "critical incidents" affecting the relationship. The information was analysed for themes which led to the need to study buyer-supplier relationships from two perspectives: 1) game-like behaviour, 2) discretion, humans have in the relationship. The presence of game-like behaviour and humans in the relationship led the researcher to study the concepts of "Transactional Analysis" and check for the feasibility to transfer the concepts from a therapeutic setting to buyer- supplier relationships. The research has been successful in exploring issues affecting buyer-supplier relationships. A methodology for aligning supply chains by taking into account human issues has been proposed. The methodology comprises a relationship framework that is used for studying buyer-supplier relationships on a macro- level based on the levels of satisfaction the entities have with each other. Since high levels of dissatisfaction lead to various change- inducing transactions or game-like behaviour between the entities, the framework identifies the status of the relationship, and can be used to gauge what's going to happen to it, once the transaction is over. The concepts of Transactional Analysis and the tools associated with it, viz. Drama Triangle analysis and structural modelling are useful in studying the dynamics of the transactions from the human perspective and also from a psychological perspective.

The interaction among firms in the supply chain is necessary for business process execution and relationship success. One phenomenon of great significance to buyer-supplier relationships is opportunism. Opportunism is defined as behavior that is self-interest seeking with guile. It is manifested in behaviors such as stealing, cheating, dishonesty, and withholding information. Opportunism negatively impacts relational exchange tenets such as trust, commitment, cooperation, and satisfaction. Furthermore, perceptions of opportunism negatively affect firm performance. In lieu of the known negative effects of opportunistic behavior on buyer-supplier relationships, why do agents continue to engage in opportunistic tactics with their exchange partners? A comprehensive examination is necessary in order to understand why sourcing professionals engage in acts of opportunism. Understanding why opportunism occurs will reveal how to deter it, and this remains a gap in the literature. Based on theories in economics, marketing channels, supply chain management, decision science, and psychology, a comprehensive model tested a set of factors hypothesized to drive the use of opportunistic tactics. Factors include buyer-supplier relationship-specific factors, environmental factors, individual personality-related factors, and situational factors. Data was collected via internet survey of sourcing professionals from private industry and government agencies. Common to many studies of ethics, respondents made choices based on two hypothetical vignettes. Two logistic regression models were used to test the hypotheses. Factors found to affect buyer opportunism included buyer power, corporate ethical values, pressure to perform, leadership opportunism, business sector, honesty/integrity, and subjective expected utility. This research contributes to theory by combining several disparate theories to best explain opportunism. A comprehensive evaluation should determine which theory explains the most variance in decision making. The study contributes to practice by identifying those important factors contributing to a sourcing professional's decision to use opportunistic tactics. The ability to manage these factors should improve the probability of relationship success. Additionally, the identification of these factors should help leaders to make more accurate estimates of transaction costs - key knowledge required to make an informed make or buy governance decision.

Drawing on the marketing, strategic management, and supply management literature, this dissertation develops and empirically tests a theoretical model that delineates knowledge sharing and collaboration between competing suppliers in serving a buying organization. Data were collected through the means of a conjoint-decision study and a survey of suppliers in the optics and the automotive industries. One hundred and forty-six executive MBA students participated in the conjoint-decision study, and one hundred and ten companies participated in the survey. Statistical analysis results from both studies show strong empirical support to the theoretical model. This dissertation advances our understanding of the relative impacts of different factors in promoting or constraining knowledge sharing between competing suppliers when they collaborate with each other to create superior value for the customer. This dissertation demonstrates that a focal supplier's transfer of knowledge to its counterpart hinges not solely on the characteristics of the collaboration. More importantly, knowledge sharing between two competing suppliers is related to different facets of the customer's relationship with the focal supplier. In conclusion, this dissertation provides substantial insights into the role and influences of the customer on competing suppliers' knowledge sharing and collaboration, as well as the value of knowledge sharing to the strategic outcomes of the inter-supplier collaboration.

Apresentada atualmente como fundamental para a vantagem competitiva das empresas, a desintegração vertical de processos é uma ação geral que, uma vez adotada, leva a novas formas de relacionamento com fornecedores. Estas novas formas de relacionamento de empresas com fornecedores fazem com que cadeias de suprimento passem a ser estruturadas por meio de vínculos de cooperação contratual, em contraposição à estruturação vertical por meio de vínculos de cooperação hegemônica. Nesta dissertação estabelecem-se primeiramente os conceitos de cadeia de suprimento e de desintegração vertical de processos; analisam-se em seguida as várias formas de relacionamento contratual que uma empresa pode estabelecer com fornecedores e daí deduzem-se critérios de escolha de fornecedores em coerência com o relacionamento que a empresa irá estabelecer com os fornecedores escolhidos. Para submeter a teste esta dedução, realizou-se uma pesquisa em duas empresas do ramo químico, por meio da qual se identificaram os critérios que estas empresas adotam para escolher fornecedores e estabelecer com eles vínculos de relacionamento contratual. Os resultados da pesquisa levam à conclusão de que as empresas pesquisadas estabelecem com seus fornecedores os relacionamentos mais adequados conforme as circunstâncias, mas não ‘o relacionamento ideal’. A dissertação se encerra com proposta de um programa de estudos transdisciplinares sobre a gestão de suprimentos em geral e os relacionamentos cliente-fornecedor em especial. / Put nowadays as basic for the competitive advantage of companies, vertical disintegration of processes is a wide action that, once adopted, gives rise to new forms of relationships with suppliers. These new forms of relationships between firms and their suppliers draw to the structuring of supply chains according to links of contractual co-operation, in contrast to their vertical structuring according to links of hegemonic co-operation. In this dissertation the concepts of supply chain and of vertical disintegration of processes are settled first; following it the various forms of contractual relationship that a firm can set up with its suppliers are scrutinized and then criteria for supplier selection are inferred, consistently with the relationship the firm will set in agreement with the chosen suppliers. In order to submit this inference to a trial, a research was undertaken at two companies that carry business in the chemical branch undertaken, identifying the criteria these companies adopt for supplier selection and for setting up with the chosen ones links of contractual co-operation. The results of the research draw to the conclusion that the researched companies set up with their suppliers the most suitable relationships according to circumstances, but not ‘the ideal relationship’. The dissertation ends with the proposal of a program for transdisciplinary studies concerning supply management broadly and customer-supplier relationships in special.

In the highlands of the Northern Philippines, a model of long-term relationships between potato farmers and their preferred seed suppliers is proposed. In the absence of any certified seed system that might provide some guarantee of seed quality, farmers prefer to transact with those seed suppliers with whom they have had some favourable prior experience. Such suppliers provide both the best quality seed and, since most farmers must borrow the capital to purchase the seed, the most favourable terms of repayment. As there is much uncertainty in the exchange, the farmer's relationship with their preferred seed supplier is based on trust. However, since the farmer's satisfaction with the exchange cannot be ascertained until after purchase, trust is antecedent to satisfaction. As satisfaction is derived from the economic benefits the farmer obtains, satisfaction will lead to the farmer's desire to maintain the relationship. Satisfaction is enhanced both by the seed supplier's willingness to extend credit and to provide information. As there is much variation between alternative seed supplier's offer quality, satisfaction will result in the farmer becoming more dependent upon that seed supplier who makes the best offer. Furthermore, having provided the farmer with financial assistance, seed suppliers will find that they have constrained their opportunities to use coercive influence strategies, for in the absence of any formal contract, farmer's may readily default on the loan. The use of coercive influence strategies will reduce both the farmer's trust in their preferred seed supplier and the farmer's desire to maintain the relationship. / While trust is more important in the transitional economies, critical problems emerge with the use of standardised item measures and scales developed in the industrial countries. Cultural specific adjustments are necessary to ensure social constructs such a trust are functionally equivalent. However, in the context of long-term relationships where satisfaction is also cumulative, introducing measures of both economic and social satisfaction have the potential to overlap with the generally accepted measures of trust.

A typical problem with relationship management in a B2B environment is that implementing companies often see the relationship only from their own perspective. In other words, the supplier decides which customer is worth treating as a key customer, without involving the customer in this decision, or vice versa. As a result, even resource-consuming key account customers might move to competitors if they do not value the relationship in the same way as the supplier and see an opportunity to save costs by switching sources. This study develops a better understanding of value in B2B relationships. It investigates the segmentation methods currently used in relationship management and develops a new approach that brings the value perspectives from buyer and seller together. The major contribution of the research, however, is to test the proposition that congruency of the value expectations of buyer and seller will optimize the relationship strength.In the literature there seem two general approaches, the hard and the soft. This research combines these measures to form a single, cohesive measurement of congruency of relationship value, from the perspective of both partners in the relationship. There is a lacuna in the burgeoning literature on relationship management, where trust is often inadequately represented in the research, and where reciprocity of value between relationship partners is often omitted. This research addresses this critical, yet under-researched, issue. It also provides a useful, practical, guide to companies desirous of setting up strong relationships with other organizations by explaining the importance of soft value measures and focusing on shared value expectations in these relationships.The quantitative survey was conducted among buyers and sellers in small and medium sized companies in Germany that are operating on an international level. The empirical results strongly support the research thesis. Implications for theory and practice are provided as well as recommendations for further research.