Horizontal cooperative purchasing

Purchasing in groups is a concept that is becoming increasingly popular in both the private and public sector. Often, the advantages such as lower purchase pricese, learning from each other, and reduced transaction costs outweigh set-up and management costs and drawbacks such as disclosure of sensitive information and the fear of free-riding group members. The concept is not always successful though. Still, it has received relatively little attention in management research. In this thesis, we study the establishment and management of purchasing groups. We define purchasing groups as organizations in which horizontal cooperative purchasing takes place. We define horizontal cooperative purchasing as the operational, tactical, and/or strategic cooperation between two or more organizations in one or more steps of the purchasing process by pooling and/or sharing their purchasing volumes, information, and/or resources.