Table 2 IPT constructs Reference from a...

Table 2

IPT constructs

	Reference from a seminal work	Findings from sourcing management discourse
Environmental Uncertainty
Sociopolitical component	Governmental regulatory control over the industry, the public political attitude towards the industry and its particular product, and the industry's relationship with trade unions that have jurisdiction in the organization (Duncan, 1972)	Buyer firms are subject to both international regulations and pressures from multiple stakeholders such as customers and nongovernmental organizations (Nair et al., 2016). Macro-changes in a buyer firm's environment entail changes to government policies, regulatory norms, cultural ethics and political and social changes (Dubey et al., 2015). Institutional pressures occur in the form of coercive data regulation or normative pressure for excellence, driving information processing interventions for automatic data storage and management in the procurement process (Lorentz et al., 2020)
Environmental dynamism	Environmental dynamism reflects the need for the organizational design to respond to the general characteristics of external dynamism. It is better defined by the maturity of the underlying technologies, among other things (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	In the digital procurement domain, the maturity of the underlying technology refers to a company's ability to embrace and use new technological assets. Technological readiness comprises the IT infrastructure that enables digital procurement (Kosmol et al., 2019)
Environmental complexity	The heterogeneity and range of an organization's activities. From the resource-dependence perspective, environmental complexity refers to competition in the industry that requires many different inputs or that produces many different outputs (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Many different requirements are demanded of potential new suppliers, necessitating a significant amount of input information tailored to the specific requirements of the buyer firm. Supplier scouting systems become complex by reflecting user (i.e., buyer firm) requirements for functions or services. Supplier scouting solutions are developed by focusing on the embodiment of functions according to user demand in order to improve and accommodate the buyer's opinions (Lee et al., 2012)
Task Uncertainty
Organizational personnel component	Employees' educational and technological background and skills, including previous technological and managerial skills, individual members' involvement and commitment to attaining the system's goals, interpersonal behaviour styles and the availability of manpower for utilization within the system (Duncan, 1972)	The organizational personnel component comprises human resources, including the knowledge and skills to implement digital technologies in the digital procurement domain (Bals et al., 2019; Kosmol et al., 2019) “Top management support denotes the degree to which top managers understand and appreciate the value potential of digital procurement, as well as the degree to which they champion and promote the use of digital technologies and practices in procurement” (Kosmol et al., 2019, p. 5)
Organizational functional and staff units component	The technological characteristics of organizational units, the interdependence of organizational units in carrying out their objectives and intra-unit and inter-unit conflict among organizational functional and staff units (Duncan, 1972)	In the digital procurement domain, the organizational functional and staff units component refers to “the roles, responsibilities, and interfaces for the coordination and integration of digital procurement both in the company and with external partners. Coordination and integration of these units can be achieved through vertical mechanisms (e.g. centralized under a chief digital officer) or through lateral mechanisms (e.g. decentralized across cross-functional teams)” (Kosmol et al., 2019, p. 5)
Task analysability	The extent to which there is a known procedure that specifies the sequence of steps to be followed when performing a task (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The scouting process is not formalized in the literature. Market research may be outsourced to external providers such as Beroe (https://www.beroeinc.com/). After data collection, the purchasing team must process and integrate the data to ensure that they are effectively used for scouting activities (Monczka et al., 2016)
Task variety	The number of exceptions or the frequency of unanticipated and novel events that require different methods or procedures for doing the job (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The process of scouting for new suppliers is different for more strategic components or standardized commodities; each scouting process has its own characteristics. The services operators for industrial firms offering scouting solutions return several different pieces of information about the potential supplier (Bartezzaghi and Ronchi, 2005; Monczka et al., 2016)
Knowledge intensity	The extent to which a firm depends on the knowledge inherent in its activities and outputs as a source of competitive advantage (Cegielski et al., 2012)	The whole point of conducting market research is to access knowledge about suppliers, understand prevailing market conditions and ascertain the ability of potential new suppliers to deliver the product or service effectively. Supply market intelligence is a source of competitive advantage (Monczka et al., 2016)
Partnership Uncertainty
Level of mutual trust	A factor that can help reduce uncertainty about the opportunistic behaviour of the other partner (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	When both the buyer and the supplier can objectively trust one another because there are no grounds for opportunism on either side, the development of mutual trust and the collaborative sharing of information between buyers and suppliers become key for the success of the relationship. In all other cases – which we believe to be predominate in business exchanges – such approaches may prove problematic (Cox, 2001)
Supplier's asset specificity	The extent to which the supply of a good/service requires capabilities and skills unique to a supplier (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	When a supplier's asset specificity is significant, buyer firms will face high switching costs and high search costs. On the other hand, this makes the supplier's offering relatively unique, increasing the power of the supplier in the negotiation (Cox, 2015)
Structural Mechanisms
Formalization	The process of formalizing – in terms of rules and procedures – the information exchange, or the extent to which the information exchange is used for coordination versus control purposes (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The level of formalization of the supplier scouting process can vary in terms of activities and procedures to be accomplished, how information flows and how coordination occurs among the involved stakeholders (Spina, 2008)
Process Mechanisms
Commitment	The extent to which there exists an equal bearing of risks, burdens and benefits between the two firms (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Digital procurement can provide a basis for exploring capabilities for broader value contribution based on knowledge and market intelligence sharing as well as collaboration and integration (Lorentz et al., 2020). In the present study, the commitment included in value creation involves the buyer firm, the suppliers and the IT provider synergistically delivering the scouting solution
Joint action	The extent to which there exists joint efforts and cooperation between the two companies in terms of long-range planning, product planning, product engineering, process engineering, tooling development, technical assistance and training/education (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Supply market intelligence acquisition requires discussions and meetings with suppliers, internal and external stakeholder meetings for leads and the maintenance of personal contact networks. In particular, the role of experts in the field is recognized as a way to attain new supply market intelligence (Lorentz et al., 2020). In the present research, joint action is intended as a two-way effort in the relationships between the buyer firm, the suppliers and the IT provider delivering the scouting solution
Technological Mechanisms
Compatibility	The ability to share information across any type of technology platform (Byrd, 2000; Cegielski et al., 2012)	“This parameter may be an appropriate measure for control and coordination of communications among partners in a supply chain. Furthermore, this dimension is particularly apt for assessing the information processing capability of a supply chain member organization because it captures the perspective of an organization's information systems to adapt to meet the needs of the users throughout the organization as a whole rather than assessing the single usefulness of a specific application or software program to facilitate a specific task” (Cegielski et al., 2012, p. 189)
Data processing capabilities	A firm's ability to collect and analyse data to gain critical insights (Agarwal and Dhar, 2014). Analytics capability is the organizational facility with tools, techniques and processes that enable a firm to process, organize, visualize and analyse data, thereby producing insights that enable data-driven operational planning, decision-making and execution. “Analytics capability enables firms to increase their information processing capacity, whereby firms gather data from various sources and analyse it to gain insights for supply chain managers” (Srinivasan and Swing, 2018, p. 1851)	In the supply market intelligence context, data processing capability includes a broad range of mechanisms, such as analyses focused on different sources of information: commercial databases and sourcing tools, ERP-based supplier scorecards and Internet-based reports. It can also include higher-level features of the system, such as subscription-based newsfeeds. In some cases, this mechanism enables the use of collaborative platforms, and these, as a side effect, also provide intelligence about supply markets. Such platforms have a high capacity for conveying rich information because they may be used to gather data from many different stakeholders, process these data and produce interesting insights for the buyer firm (Lorentz et al., 2020)
Data quality	The degree to which data can be used to process information (Cegielski et al., 2012). “The degree to which data can be used is largely determined by their quality. Poor quality data can have a direct impact on business decisions” (Hazen et al., 2014, p. 72)	In the digital procurement domain, a technology intervention pertains to data quality. This intervention requires combining a high volume, variety and velocity of data from heterogeneous internal and external sources, sharing data with external stakeholders for a specific purpose, and organizing data to ensure the access, quality and use of such data (Lorentz et al., 2020)
ERP integration	The ability to integrate with the organizational ERP package in order to enable real-time information sharing and the integration of business functions (Bag, 2020)	The integration of the ERP in the procurement process proves useful in the adoption of Procurement 4.0 systems (Huang and Handfield, 2015)

	Reference from a seminal work	Findings from sourcing management discourse
Environmental Uncertainty
Sociopolitical component	Governmental regulatory control over the industry, the public political attitude towards the industry and its particular product, and the industry's relationship with trade unions that have jurisdiction in the organization (Duncan, 1972)	Buyer firms are subject to both international regulations and pressures from multiple stakeholders such as customers and nongovernmental organizations (Nair et al., 2016). Macro-changes in a buyer firm's environment entail changes to government policies, regulatory norms, cultural ethics and political and social changes (Dubey et al., 2015). Institutional pressures occur in the form of coercive data regulation or normative pressure for excellence, driving information processing interventions for automatic data storage and management in the procurement process (Lorentz et al., 2020)
Environmental dynamism	Environmental dynamism reflects the need for the organizational design to respond to the general characteristics of external dynamism. It is better defined by the maturity of the underlying technologies, among other things (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	In the digital procurement domain, the maturity of the underlying technology refers to a company's ability to embrace and use new technological assets. Technological readiness comprises the IT infrastructure that enables digital procurement (Kosmol et al., 2019)
Environmental complexity	The heterogeneity and range of an organization's activities. From the resource-dependence perspective, environmental complexity refers to competition in the industry that requires many different inputs or that produces many different outputs (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Many different requirements are demanded of potential new suppliers, necessitating a significant amount of input information tailored to the specific requirements of the buyer firm. Supplier scouting systems become complex by reflecting user (i.e., buyer firm) requirements for functions or services. Supplier scouting solutions are developed by focusing on the embodiment of functions according to user demand in order to improve and accommodate the buyer's opinions (Lee et al., 2012)
Task Uncertainty
Organizational personnel component	Employees' educational and technological background and skills, including previous technological and managerial skills, individual members' involvement and commitment to attaining the system's goals, interpersonal behaviour styles and the availability of manpower for utilization within the system (Duncan, 1972)	The organizational personnel component comprises human resources, including the knowledge and skills to implement digital technologies in the digital procurement domain (Bals et al., 2019; Kosmol et al., 2019)“Top management support denotes the degree to which top managers understand and appreciate the value potential of digital procurement, as well as the degree to which they champion and promote the use of digital technologies and practices in procurement” (Kosmol et al., 2019, p. 5)
Organizational functional and staff units component	The technological characteristics of organizational units, the interdependence of organizational units in carrying out their objectives and intra-unit and inter-unit conflict among organizational functional and staff units (Duncan, 1972)	In the digital procurement domain, the organizational functional and staff units component refers to “the roles, responsibilities, and interfaces for the coordination and integration of digital procurement both in the company and with external partners. Coordination and integration of these units can be achieved through vertical mechanisms (e.g. centralized under a chief digital officer) or through lateral mechanisms (e.g. decentralized across cross-functional teams)” (Kosmol et al., 2019, p. 5)
Task analysability	The extent to which there is a known procedure that specifies the sequence of steps to be followed when performing a task (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The scouting process is not formalized in the literature. Market research may be outsourced to external providers such as Beroe (https://www.beroeinc.com/). After data collection, the purchasing team must process and integrate the data to ensure that they are effectively used for scouting activities (Monczka et al., 2016)
Task variety	The number of exceptions or the frequency of unanticipated and novel events that require different methods or procedures for doing the job (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The process of scouting for new suppliers is different for more strategic components or standardized commodities; each scouting process has its own characteristics. The services operators for industrial firms offering scouting solutions return several different pieces of information about the potential supplier (Bartezzaghi and Ronchi, 2005; Monczka et al., 2016)
Knowledge intensity	The extent to which a firm depends on the knowledge inherent in its activities and outputs as a source of competitive advantage (Cegielski et al., 2012)	The whole point of conducting market research is to access knowledge about suppliers, understand prevailing market conditions and ascertain the ability of potential new suppliers to deliver the product or service effectively. Supply market intelligence is a source of competitive advantage (Monczka et al., 2016)
Partnership Uncertainty
Level of mutual trust	A factor that can help reduce uncertainty about the opportunistic behaviour of the other partner (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	When both the buyer and the supplier can objectively trust one another because there are no grounds for opportunism on either side, the development of mutual trust and the collaborative sharing of information between buyers and suppliers become key for the success of the relationship. In all other cases – which we believe to be predominate in business exchanges – such approaches may prove problematic (Cox, 2001)
Supplier's asset specificity	The extent to which the supply of a good/service requires capabilities and skills unique to a supplier (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	When a supplier's asset specificity is significant, buyer firms will face high switching costs and high search costs. On the other hand, this makes the supplier's offering relatively unique, increasing the power of the supplier in the negotiation (Cox, 2015)
Structural Mechanisms
Formalization	The process of formalizing – in terms of rules and procedures – the information exchange, or the extent to which the information exchange is used for coordination versus control purposes (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	The level of formalization of the supplier scouting process can vary in terms of activities and procedures to be accomplished, how information flows and how coordination occurs among the involved stakeholders (Spina, 2008)
Process Mechanisms
Commitment	The extent to which there exists an equal bearing of risks, burdens and benefits between the two firms (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Digital procurement can provide a basis for exploring capabilities for broader value contribution based on knowledge and market intelligence sharing as well as collaboration and integration (Lorentz et al., 2020). In the present study, the commitment included in value creation involves the buyer firm, the suppliers and the IT provider synergistically delivering the scouting solution
Joint action	The extent to which there exists joint efforts and cooperation between the two companies in terms of long-range planning, product planning, product engineering, process engineering, tooling development, technical assistance and training/education (Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995)	Supply market intelligence acquisition requires discussions and meetings with suppliers, internal and external stakeholder meetings for leads and the maintenance of personal contact networks. In particular, the role of experts in the field is recognized as a way to attain new supply market intelligence (Lorentz et al., 2020). In the present research, joint action is intended as a two-way effort in the relationships between the buyer firm, the suppliers and the IT provider delivering the scouting solution
Technological Mechanisms
Compatibility	The ability to share information across any type of technology platform (Byrd, 2000; Cegielski et al., 2012)	“This parameter may be an appropriate measure for control and coordination of communications among partners in a supply chain. Furthermore, this dimension is particularly apt for assessing the information processing capability of a supply chain member organization because it captures the perspective of an organization's information systems to adapt to meet the needs of the users throughout the organization as a whole rather than assessing the single usefulness of a specific application or software program to facilitate a specific task” (Cegielski et al., 2012, p. 189)
Data processing capabilities	A firm's ability to collect and analyse data to gain critical insights (Agarwal and Dhar, 2014). Analytics capability is the organizational facility with tools, techniques and processes that enable a firm to process, organize, visualize and analyse data, thereby producing insights that enable data-driven operational planning, decision-making and execution. “Analytics capability enables firms to increase their information processing capacity, whereby firms gather data from various sources and analyse it to gain insights for supply chain managers” (Srinivasan and Swing, 2018, p. 1851)	In the supply market intelligence context, data processing capability includes a broad range of mechanisms, such as analyses focused on different sources of information: commercial databases and sourcing tools, ERP-based supplier scorecards and Internet-based reports. It can also include higher-level features of the system, such as subscription-based newsfeeds. In some cases, this mechanism enables the use of collaborative platforms, and these, as a side effect, also provide intelligence about supply markets. Such platforms have a high capacity for conveying rich information because they may be used to gather data from many different stakeholders, process these data and produce interesting insights for the buyer firm (Lorentz et al., 2020)
Data quality	The degree to which data can be used to process information (Cegielski et al., 2012).“The degree to which data can be used is largely determined by their quality. Poor quality data can have a direct impact on business decisions” (Hazen et al., 2014, p. 72)	In the digital procurement domain, a technology intervention pertains to data quality. This intervention requires combining a high volume, variety and velocity of data from heterogeneous internal and external sources, sharing data with external stakeholders for a specific purpose, and organizing data to ensure the access, quality and use of such data (Lorentz et al., 2020)
ERP integration	The ability to integrate with the organizational ERP package in order to enable real-time information sharing and the integration of business functions (Bag, 2020)	The integration of the ERP in the procurement process proves useful in the adoption of Procurement 4.0 systems (Huang and Handfield, 2015)

Source(s): Table created by authors

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