9. Contributions, limitations and suggestions for future research
The literature review shows a lack of a consistent approach to measuring ethical performance in purchasing and sales situations, as well as for businesses in general (Gatewood and Carroll, 1991) . The grounded development of a set of reliable and valid scales to measure unethical behavior in buyer–supplier relationships provides an initial contribution in this area. The current study attempts to broadly define the relevant ethical issues within the context of relationships of US buyers and their existing non-US suppliers. This broad definition is developed and measured through an integration of the findings from an extensive literature review with those of focus group interviews of purchasing practitioners and a dyadic survey of purchasing managers and their suppliers.