The environment as a determinant factor of the purchasing and supply strategyan empirical ana-lysis

Résumé

The environment has been considered an essential variable to explain the strategic behavior of companies; however, few works have studied the role that environment plays in the formulation of strategies in the purchasing function. The objective of this work is to study the relationship between munificence, hostility, dynamism and complexity of the environment and the implementation of practices of evaluation, development, involvement and logistics integration of suppliers. Several hypotheses are formulated starting from different approaches and theories developed in the field of strategic management and operations management, and they are tested over a sample of 96 industrial companies with business activities in the northeast of Brazil. The results reveal a statistically significant relationship between the characteristics of the environment and the practices employed in the purchasing function, the hostility and the complexity of the environment being outstanding for their explanatory power.