Managing Purchasing of Non-product Related (npr) Goods and Services - on Horizontal Frictions and Vertical Ignorance

This paper investigates the current practice with regard to the involvement of the purchasing department(s) in NPR purchasing. First we review the literature about NPR purchasing, and especially the major benefits and challenges of involving purchasing department in NPR purchasing. Furthermore the paper explores some theoretical explanations of why certain tasks regarding NPR purchasing should be attributed to a purchasing specialist and others should not. In order to refine the theoretical explanations we als conducted an empirical study. The findings of the emipirical research are presented at the end of the paper. The main conclusion is that top management – at least in theory – could improve its grip on NPRpurchasing by more clearly creating the conditions for a self-regulating ‘economic system’ within the firm which offers internal departments different possibilities for organizing their respective purchasing activities. These conditions must allow for letting the internal customer be in charge of purchasing themselves, but also offer the possibility of buying purchasing assistance on a ‘market’ and/or developing co-operative relationships with a purchasing specialist.