DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES AND SMES REGARDING BUYER-SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS

Purchasing becomes increasingly important and companies notice more and more that purchasing can contribute to their competitive advantage. Especially to companies who focus on sustainability, purchasing is important, because purchasing can function as a gateway and prevent companies from reputational damage at other entities in the supply chain. On the other hand, also SMEs start to recognise the contribution that purchasing can make to a company’s performance. This research uses a combination of a survey and grounded theory approach to discover whether there are differences between sustainable companies and SMEs related to the amount of strategic relationships and the way they manage their strategic relationships with suppliers. Secondary data from thirty-two SMEs and thirty-nine sustainable companies in the Netherlands, combined with data from ten interviews (five SMEs and five sustainable companies) was gathered. This has led to the conclusion that sustainable companies have more strategic relationships with their suppliers than SMEs because of the additional requirements they have regarding sustainable criteria. Other findings are that strategic relationships are dependent on the kind of product and trust. Reasons to be involved in strategic relationships with suppliers are satisfaction with a supplier’s performance and third party influences, whereas reasons to avoid strategic relationships are dependency, previous experiences, the type of company, and financial instability. Lastly positive consequences are an increase in performance and the solving of problems, whereas the informants did not have any real negative consequences to identify