Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-101).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Freiburg im Breisgau. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-192).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / "MBA professional report"--Cover. Thesis advisor(s): E. Marshall Engelbeck, Jeffrey Cuskey. Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-22). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Contract Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): David V. Lamm, Donald Summers. Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-83). Also available online.

Background: Organic food became a popular topic in recent years. Even though organic markets are becoming larger than before, the organic fruit market is still a niche market around the world. Consumers’ purchasing intentions towards organic products are impacted by many factors. Purpose: The purpose of this research study is to investigate the customers’ purchasing behaviors with different food-related lifestyles in China and France. Method: A research model and four hypotheses alongside the study have been used after reviewing relevant literatures. An online questionnaire survey was conducted in China and France, which resulted in 261 completed and usable responses. Results: All hypotheses were accepted representing all the independent variables, which includes attitudes toward purchasing organic fruit, subjective norms, perceived control and food-related lifestyles, influencing purchase intentions. In terms of research questions, the results suggested that food-related lifestyles in different countries exhibited positive significant relationships with customers’ planned behavior.

This research project specifically investigates the use of information processing strategies by organizational buyers in the first stage of the supplier selection process, the selection of an evoked set of qualified suppliers. In this selection process it is hypothesized that the buyer's use of evaluation functions or information processing strategies is influenced by the task faced by the buyer. The varying levels of risk, familiarity and informational requirements of the buying situation should impact the use of the information processing strategies. Structured protocols--written descriptions of compensatory and noncompensatory information processing strategies--were used to determine the evaluation function which organizational buyers use to qualify suppliers into an evoked set. The data was collected in a field study of 135 organizational buyers from 76 different organizations. The subjects were interviewed about purchases they were presently working on in which suppliers had been selected but the final purchase decision was still pending. Identification of the buying task, new task, modified rebuy, and straight rebuy also utilized the structured protocol technique. Written descriptions, based on the constitutive definitions of Robinson and Farris (1967), were used to address the following research question: Is there a difference in the decision rules or information processing strategies utilized by organizational buyers in the development of an evoked set of qualified suppliers when the buyer is qualifying suppliers for a new task, modified rebuy, or straight rebuy buying task? In addition to the information gathered via the structured protocols, information was gathered about the level of risk, familiarity and information requirements of the purchasing task. This was done to gain a better understanding of the use of information-processing strategies by organizational buyers. Analysis of the data indicates that the buying task is related to the choice of an information-processing strategy. The data also support the contention that the organizational buyer will utilize any of the information-processing strategies in the selection of an evoked set of suppliers. Although the buying task was found to significantly influence the use of the information-processing strategies, the study shows that all of the strategies were reported as being used for each of the buying tasks. In addition to finding that the buying task influences the choice of an information-processing strategy, the data support the model of information processing presented. The model addressed the impact that risk, familiarity, and information load had on the use of the evaluation functions. The risk node of the model was supported by two of the five risk variables included in the study: product homogeneity and supplier homogeneity. At the familiarity nodes of the model, the subjective measures of familiarity which support the model are supplier familiarity and frequency of product purchase. Supplier familiarity was found to be significantly different between the weighted and unweighted compensatory strategies. The significant difference in the level of familiarity found in the use of the conjunctive and disjunctive information processing strategies is associated with the frequency of product purchase. The final nodal section of the information-processing model which was supported is the comparison of the conjunctive and lexicographic strategies. The lexicographic strategy was found to be used when there was a higher perceived number of suppliers capable of supplying the needed product. In general this study has shown that the situation in which suppliers are selected impacts the use of an information-processing strategy. The findings are consistent with the research and hypothesizing associated with the use of information-processing strategies by consumers.

Historically small and medium size enterprises have been playing a major role inwestern economies for years. The importance of SME for developed economies is obvious fromstatistic data. In instance, according to European Commission annual report on SMEs in 2008, in European Union there were over 20 million enterprises where about 99.8 % of them were small and medium sizeу enterprises. Taking into account importance of SME for economy, it becomes necessary to pay careful attention to academic studies of management practices in small to medium size enterprises. In our days, strategic purchasing is one of the foremost discussed topics of business development. Carr A. (2002) states that since the mid of 80th, strategic role of purchasing has continuously been in the focus of attention in academic and trade journals. However, despite of growth popularity of strategic approach to purchasing management, there is low amount of analysis on hybrid theme of purchasing management in SMEs. Thus, realizing the importance of small to medium size enterprises for national economies and understanding strategic purchasing management as the competitive advantage of the business, the purpose of current master thesis project is to analyze implementation of strategic purchasing and its supplier selection and supplier development functions in SME. In order to accomplish the research purpose, the analysis includes the profound literature on the studied topic; moreover additional effort is put to research the achievements of previous studies on purchasing management in SMEs. Finally, the empirical study of strategic purchasing in small to medium enterprises is performed through interviews with 5 (Five) top managers of small firms operating in Russia. Obtained primary data results are compared with secondary data, so that, cross regional comparison on implementation of strategic purchasing in SMEs of Russia, Denmark and United Kingdom was performed. During the research, the following conclusions were obtained. Cross regional comparison indicates similar level of implementation strategic purchasing, supplier selection, and supplier development functions in SMEs of studied countries. Different share of SMEs in economies of these countries does not impact on strategic purchasing practices. Small and medium size firms show partial implementation of strategic purchasing principles. Supplier selection in small to medium size enterprises is performed mostly in traditional way. No methods on rationalization of supply choice are held. Meanwhile, supplier development programmes are practiced broadly by SME. Small to medium size enterprises tend to undertake “indirect” supplier development programmes. Therefore, SMEs’ purchasing management consists of both traditional and strategic elements in their practices. Furthermore, such elements of strategic purchasing as top management involvement, cooperation with other functions in organization management, close collaborative and long term relations with few number of key suppliers, do not take additional resources from SME, and vice versa, they benefit to complement short internal resource by external in more efficient way, current research concludes that strategic approach to purchasing management is suitable approach to purchasing management in small to medium size enterprises.

The research aims to identify ways to enhance the supplier selection process for large transformers at Eskom. The research was based on the hypothesis that there are significant opportunities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of transformer purchases at Eskom. Large transformers are a strategic commodity for Eskom, due to the criticality and impact of the commodity on Eskorn's business. Eskom plans to spend R2.2 billion on transformers over the next five years. This indicates a substantial financial spend on the commodity. The opportunities that could be derived from transformer purchases are not only quantitative but also qualitative. The commodity, therefore, requires strategic effort in order to maximise the opportunities. The key findings of the research were as follows: • Transformer purchases and the organisational entity is complex, as it entails numerous stakeholders, complex systems, people and processes. • Eskom has not progressed from 'procurement management' to 'supply management'. • Eskom has a decentralised approach to transformer procurement, despite the strategic nature of the commodity and the fact that it purchases across the three main Eskorn Divisions. Procurement requirements are not consolidated. • There is a lack of communication and collaboration across and within Divisions. • There are no purchasing strategies, methodologies or tools to enhance the procurement process. • Procurement Officers lack knowledge on many well known methodologies, commodity knowledge, market knowledge, and supplier knowledge. • There is no focus on supplier relationship management. • Suppliers have indicated substantial opportunities for transformer procurement at Eskom. Implementing 8 World-Class SourcingProcess at Eskom with specificreference to the SupplifJr Selection Process for Large Transformers Pagei . The key recommendations based on the findings of the research are as follows: • Supply management personnel should be trained in world-class methodologies like total cost of ownership (TeO), strategic sourcing, supplier economics, supplier analysis, market research, etc. • A centralised approach to the procurement of strategic items must be instituted. This should result in a single person being responsible and accountable for Eskom's Supply management. • A collaborative approach must be encouraged by means of cross-functional teams. • Opportunities identified in the research must be implemented by a cross-functional team whom should be responsible and accountable for the implementation of the opportunities identified. • Supplier relationships must be initiated and effectively managed by the cross-functional team leaders. • The implementation must be monitored and tracked by the project sponsor. If the above recommendations are implemented Eskom would realise significant opportunities in large transformer purchases at Eskom. Should the recommendations be implemented on other commodities Eskom would achieve quantum leap improvements to Supply Management. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

The purpose of the study was to determine the status of utilization of cooperative or joint purchasing within Indiana public school corporations. Special attention was directed to the use of cooperative or joint purchasing as related to: (1) the extent cooperative or joint purchasing was utilized, (2) the size of the school corporation, (3) other school corporations, (4) units of local government, (5) units of county government, (6) units of state government, (7) the employment of a central office administrator, (8) reasons given for not utilizing cooperative or joint purchasing, and (9) whether or not cooperative or joint purchasing can save money.

This study is concerned with the behaviour of exchange rate movements focusing specifically on purchasing power parity (PPP) and the non-stationarity of real exchange rates, for a number of East Asian currencies during their recent floating periods. As one of the most important building blocks in international economies, PPP forms a core component of several models of exchange rate determination, and it is the most intensively tested hypothesis in open-economy macroeconomics. Nevertheless, in contrast to the relative abundance of research on the currencies of industrialised countries, very few studies on East Asian currencies have been carried out, leaving an important gap in the literature. Using recent advances in time series analysis, the results reveal for the East Asian countries that there existed long-run comovement between the nominal exchange rate and domestic and foreign price levels, but that the strict PPP condition claimed by the theory did not hold. This implied that any deviation from the PPP equilibrium was permanent and that there was little tendency for the real exchange rate to be mean reverting. Further investigation suggested that the real exchange rate was cointegrated with fundamentals, with most of the variables entering the cointegration vector significantly, suggesting that the movements of real exchange rate were driven by these factors. Investigating the dynamic paths of the real exchange rate and the long-run relationship (cointegrating relationship) in response to exogenous shocks also revealed that the real exchange rates did not revert to their pre-shock equilibrium, but that the long-run relationship did. It took, normally three to five years, for the real exchange rate to reach and settle down to a new equilibrium and even if the effect of shocks on the long-run relationship was transitory, the speed of convergence to the equilibrium was slow. The results also showed that the effects of shocks vary from one country to another. This meant that there was no universal panacea to deal with fluctuations in real exchange rates, as they were influenced by a country's natural endowment, stage in industrialisation, as well as monetary and exchange policies.