This article discusses the theoretical and conceptual foundations for the co-management of purchasing and marketing
and thereby provides some answers to the questions, why, when and how purchasing and marketing
should be co-managed. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing between internal and external comanagement
of purchasing and marketing. Improving value creation and value capture is identified as a necessary
“pull factor” driving the co-management of purchasing and marketing. Based on resource dependence theory
(RDT), we argue that dependence on critical resources is another important “push factor” for the emergence
of external co-management. We present a RDT-based typology of co-management constellations showing that
co-management is not a one-size-fits-all approach and summarize our findings in five propositions on the comanagement
of purchasing and marketing. In sum, we conceptualize co-management of marketing and purchasing
as a bridging strategy that allows a focal firm to accommodate dependence on critical upstream and/or downstream
resources and improves value creation within the supply chain.
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