Thinking Differently About Purchasing Portfolios: An Assessment of Sustainable Sourcing

Purchasing portfolios are a well accepted part of the supply chain literature. Yet during a recent data collection effort we observed that a number of leaders in sustainable supply chain management were not organizing their purchasing portfolios in the manner suggested by Kraljic (1983). Specifically, we found evidence of organizations buying what would traditionally be leveraged commodities in a manner more suited to strategic suppliers. This manuscript describes the observed phenomena and then uses theory to try and explain our observations. The end result is a modified sustainable purchasing portfolio model.