Goals, Conflict, Politics, and Performance of Cross‐Functional Sourcing Teams—Results from a Social Team Experiment

Abstract

Strategic sourcing is carried out in cross‐functional teams to account for the complexity and multidimensionality of modern procurement decisions. However, such teams not only enable the integration of distinct interdependent skill sets and viewpoints, they are also characterized by functional goal misalignment. We focus on the resulting behavioral challenges, namely conflict and politics, and their effects on team satisfaction and rationality, which ultimately leads to observed outcomes. We test our hypotheses in a structural equation model based on data gathered from 468 participants in a social team experiment. We find a mediated effect of goal misalignment on political behavior via two types of team conflict. Political behavior, in turn, obstructs rational team sourcing decisions and reduces team members’ satisfaction with the process. Our study indicates that behavioral challenges in the framework of Organizational Buying Behavior not only co‐occur but affect each other via mediation. Hence, managers need to closely monitor the escalation chains’ origin, task conflict, which constitutes a necessary condition for further emotional dissent and political biasing. We contribute to the understanding of the challenges in cross‐functional sourcing teams, thereby providing advice to executives in their pursuit to rationalize and improve sourcing team decisions and their outcomes.

Archetypes of sourcing decision-making

“…This study contributes to the growing global sourcing literature, particularly in the field of OBB and (global) sourcing decision-making (Kaufmann et al, 2009;Riedl et al, 2013;Kaufmann et al, 2014;Franke and Foerstl, 2019). A more in-depth knowledge has been provided on the contextual factors that influence how companies conduct decision-making when global sourcing of complex components is considered a viable option.…”

“…These internal factors could also be applied to different units of analysis and perspectives. For instance, current research stresses the need to research the composition of cross-functional sourcing teams in more detail (Foerstl et al, 2017;Franke and Foerstl, 2019).…”

“…Cavusgil et al , 1993; Smart and Dudas, 2007; Moses and Åhlström, 2008) but why they undertake a certain path is still opaque. Among the exceptions are the studies of Kaufmann et al (2009, 2012, 2017), Akinci and Sadler-Smith (2012), Riedl et al (2013), Stanczyk et al (2015), Kaufmann and Wagner (2017) and recently Franke and Foerstl (2019) which provide a more nuanced and deeper understanding of strategic sourcing phenomena by applying an organizational buying behavior (OBB) perspective.…”

Quality Output, Workplace Environment, and Employee Retention: The Positive Influence of Emotionally Intelligent Supply Chain Managers

“…Adding to the pressure is the need to retain the very best employees within an environment that is historically challenged with relatively low wages, long hours, and high employee turnover. Employee turnover and a lack of experience in logistics operations are often associated with negative operational performance, poor decision making, and negative customer service outcomes (Miller et al 2017; Castillo et al 2018; Franke and Forestl 2019). These circumstances highlight the necessity of hiring and retaining the very best employees because of the critical nature of employees within SC operations.…”

Project Teams as a Supply Chain Integration Tool

“…et al, 2018) 2 -behavioral aspects in the work of an interfunctional team, the impact of the human factor on the performance of teams in supply chains, factors that motivate to work in a team (Ambrose, Matthews, and Rutherford 2018;S. Bhaskaran and Gligorovska 2009;de Abreu and Chicarelli Alcantara 2015;de Freitas et al 2020;Enz and Lambert 2015;Franke and Foerstl 2020a; Words have been grouped into clusters, which indicate the number of items included in the group presented in the graph. Each item can only belong to one cluster, and not all items need to belong to any cluster.…”