Purpose – This paper aims to identify problems caused by cultural differences between Japan and China that face supply chain managers by applying Japanese-style supply management practices within supply networks in China and present solutions to this problem. Design/methodology/approach – A...

Purpose – Inter‐firm learning, or dyadic learning, has been studied extensively in recent years: however very little attention has been devoted to extending the concept to an international context and no formal definition exists. The purpose of this paper is to propose “cultural...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address global sourcing organisational design through the following research questions: how do the roles performed by International Purchasing Offices (IPOs) change over time?; what are the resources/capabilities required by an IPO for an effective...

The salience of the international purchasing office (IPO) in the management of international sourcing activities of multinational corporations (MNCs) has steadily increased, in developed and emerging economies, since the first adoption of this supply chain strategy in the 1980s. The aim of this...

Setting up an international purchasing office (IPO) is one of the key steps for firms doing global sourcing. This paper aims to explore the relationship between strategy and structure in a contemporary global purchasing context. We build a theory of IPOs, employing a case study method to address...