The purpose of this paper is to illuminate how supplier evaluation practices are linked to supplier performance improvements. Specifically, the paper investigates how performance information travelling between the evaluating buyer and the evaluated suppliers is shaped and reshaped in the evaluation process.
The paper relies on a multiple, longitudinal case research methodology. The two cases show two companies' efforts in designing, implementing, and using supplier evaluation in order to improve supplier performance.
The findings show how the dynamics of representing, reducing, amplifying, dampening, and directing shape and reshape supplier evaluation information. In both companies, evaluation practices were defined, redefined, and re‐directed by the involved actors' perception and decision making, as well as organisational structures, IT systems, and available data sources.
The identified factors and dynamics could be empirically tested on larger samples to increase generalisability.
The results provide insights into how an evaluating buyer may analyse and control supplier evaluation processes thereby improving their effects. Managers must know how performance information is altered before reaching key supplier actors in order to optimise supplier performance.
Current studies on supplier evaluation practices are limited in their focus on design, implementation, or use. This paper explores all three phases empirically, and proposes a set of dynamics to better understand and control the often taken for granted link between intentions and outcome of such practices. In relation to future research, the authors propose a more holistic direction, which will take the entire supplier evaluation process as its unit of analysis.
