Power and interdependence in buyer supplier relationships: A purchasing portfolio approach

Power and interdependence are generally considered to be important concepts for understanding buyer–supplier relationships. Yet, empirical research on power and interdependence in buyer–supplier relationships is still limited. Power and interdependence issues also play an important role in Kraljic's portfolio approach, which is increasingly used by purchasing practitioners for managing different supplier relations and developing appropriate purchasing strategies. In this paper, the concepts of power and interdependence have been quantified for each quadrant of the Kraljic portfolio matrix, using data from a comprehensive survey among Dutch purchasing professionals. Several hypotheses have been tested and the findings largely confirm the theoretical expectations. The observed supplier dominance in the strategic quadrant of the Kraljic matrix is a notable finding, which indicates that even satisfactory partnerships are dominated by the supplier. Therefore, the presumed power symmetry of buyer–supplier relationships in the strategic quadrant seems no longer valid.