While global sourcing often implies that the firm needs to, for example, redesign the procurement organization and make decisions on what to centralize and what to manage locally, global sourcing also has direct implications for management of the buyer–supplier interface. This study takes an...

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...

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...