Abstract
The success of purchasing and supply management (PSM) largely depends on PSM professionals' skills levels. Past research assumed that one universal PSM professional type exists, and they have proposed one-size-fits-all PSM skillsets. However, PSM professionals have different objectives. Based on the data of an extensive survey conducted amongst European PSM professionals (n = 366), this study presents skillsets for seven objectives (reducing costs and improving delivery, quality, sustainability, strategic competitive advantage, supplier satisfaction and innovation). A differentiation is made between “necessary” and “sufficient” conditions for each objective's effectiveness. Within a new PSM-skills taxonomy, a hierarchy of skills is detected as one of the first categories that provide quantitative evidence that soft skills or personal skills are necessary conditions for carrying out hard skills or professional skills. Based on the proposed skillsets, university educators and firm trainers can draft teaching plans that support the intended outcome, while individual PSM professionals may get an orientation on how to develop their skills further.
Highlights
The focus on core competences in organisations, as underlined by Prahalad and Hamel (1990) and the outsourcing of the rest had as a consequence, that the importance of supplier manage ment, supply chain management and strategic decision-making increased, and so the scope of purchasing objectives (Luzzini and Ronchi, 2016)
Examples have been given of purchasing and supply management (PSM) skills studies in which the term “necessary” was used in combination with the term “skill”, it is questionable whether the presented skills were “sufficient” or “necessary” conditions for performing the PSM function
The analyses consisted of OLS regression and Necessary Con dition Analysis (NCA), leading to a typology of PSM objectives as predictors for effec tiveness related to different PSM objectives as an answer to the research questions
Summary
A keyword search in Scopus was applied, following the guidelines of Durach et al (2017). The focus on core competences in organisations, as underlined by Prahalad and Hamel (1990) and the outsourcing of the rest had as a consequence, that the importance of supplier manage ment, supply chain management and strategic decision-making increased, and so the scope of purchasing objectives (Luzzini and Ronchi, 2016). The participants self-rated 88 different com petency levels and 22 self-rated statements on individual and organ isational effectiveness in the seven objective areas aimed at improving (1) cost levels, (2) delivery performance, (3) quality and (4) sustain ability levels, (5) achieving sustained competitive advantage, (6) sup plier satisfaction and (7) innovation sourcing and implementation (see Appendix 3 for the formulation of the items and the sources). The VIFs are under the maximum level for multi collinearity issues (Hair et al, 2010; Ringle et al, 2015)
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