International purchasing offices in China: roles and resource/capability requirements

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address global sourcing organisational design through the following research questions: how do the roles performed by International Purchasing Offices (IPOs) change over time?; what are the resources/capabilities required by an IPO for an effective performance and how do they change over time?; and what are the contingent factors affecting such changes? Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed...