Laurence Viale

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

In a context where the imperative to innovate is at its peak, the various functions within a company are searching for processes that can strengthen their capacity for innovation. Our research aims to shed light on the involvement and contribution of the Purchasing function in the innovation process of agri-food companies by, firstly, developing a typology of buyers and, secondly, identifying certain organizational factors that are key to the success of this function's involvement.
Based on our results, the successful involvement of the Purchasing function in the innovation process is not a matter of particular performance of inter-organizational factors but rather the result of a balanced performance on a set of components such as the alignment of services and organizations internally and externally, the metacognitive skills of buyers, involvement in ideation, as well as internal and external attractiveness.
 

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