Supplier selection and business process improvement: an exploratory multiple case study

One of the most critical gaps in the literature is the lack of empirical research pertaining to what attributes of the supplier influence the process improvement of the buyer, and the other is the lack of theoretical framework relating to how and why the buyer's process improvement is affected by the supplier selection factors. This study aims to fill these gaps and empirically explore the relationship between supplier selection and Business Process Improvement (BPI). The results indicate the supplier's Quality, Service, Organisation, Relationship and Cycle Time have relations to the buyer's Improvement Initiative and Customer Focus while the supplier's Cost, as an important selection factor, has no relation to the BPI factors. As an exploratory study, it also intends to refine issues, identify important variables, formulate more precise questions and generate hypotheses for further research.