Supply Chain Management (SCM) often requires independent organizations to
work together to achieve shared objectives. This collaboration is necessary when
coordinated actions benefit the group more than the uncoordinated efforts of individual
firms. Collaboration is a key dimension of SCM, and it has numerous key dimensions of
its own. These include information sharing, resource sharing, decision synchronization,
incentive alignment, goal congruence, joint knowledge creation, and collaborative
communication. Trust and commitment are also key factors that intertwine with these
dimensions. Successful implementation of these types of collaborative relationships can
lead to a collaborative advantage, where firms working together achieve greater success
than they would have alone.
Recent research has indicated that collaboration attempts between firms in
supply chains have not been as widespread as anticipated. This is despite the commonly
reported benefits that may be gained by working together, which may be attributed to
traditional business practices where innovation-driving competition between firms is
commonplace. A large cause of this might be that academics are far outreaching
practitioners with where collaboration should be in its present state of practice.
This research investigates the progress the purchasing function of global
organizations has made in achieving collaboration in supply chain relationships, ranging
from firms practicing a silo mentality to firms working together to compete with other
supply chains. Input is solicited from purchasing professionals with a survey and a series
of semi-structured interviews in an effort to present a current snapshot of the utilization of collaboration in procurement and how supply chains can transition to more
collaborative structures in the future.