Luitzen De Boer

Norwegian University of Science and Technology | NTNU · Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management

As an intermediate layer located between buildings and cities, neighborhoods are considered critical with regard to the transition to low-carbon cities and zero-emission societies. Sustainable and zero-emission neighborhood (ZEN) projects can be characterized as both complex and multi-organizational. However, there is currently only limited researc...

Construction machinery is essential to all construction projects and is also a significant contributor to both air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Non-Road Mobile Machinery Market (NRMM), otherwise known as the construction machinery market, largely operates using diesel fuel nowadays which has significant negative environmental i...

This chapter gives an overview of the principles of life cycle assessment (LCA), supply chain management (SCM) and design for the environment (DfE). They are all placed at Level 2 in the CapSEM Model as tools for enhancing the product by improving the actual production processes that take place at different stages and subsystems in the life cycle o...

The construction sector and built environment have the potential to impact on a variety of systemic dimensions, ranging from specific processes in the production of construction materials to pan-national regulations affecting regional areas and cities. This case study uses the CapSEM Model in order to identify the potential enabling and constrainin...

Theories of business relationships and networks suggest that a firm's relationships with other organizations matter for its performance and survival (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995). Inspired by business relationship and network perspectives, we expand Teece's (2007) dynamic capabilities model and develop an interactive dynamic capabilities framework wi...

The public sector has a vital role in reducing emissions from construction activities and achieving environmental goals. Therefore, it is vital to investigate the opportunities for reducing the construction industry’s emissions through its procurement practices. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of using green public procurement...

Previous studies have suggested that public procurement promotes transactional and standardized interfaces between public buyers and suppliers. The use of more interactive and translational interfaces in market dialogues during the pre-tender phase of public procurement has received limited academic interest. Based on a multiple-case study, this pa...

Background There is a consensus among healthcare providers, academics, and policy-makers that spiraling demand and diminishing resources are threatening the sustainability of the current healthcare system. Different telemedicine services are seen as potential solutions to the current challenges in healthcare. This paper aims to identify how distanc...

As a result of the increase in carbon emissions and climate change, it is imperative to innovate and implement new sustainable solutions across industries, including construction. The current study explores how an early upstream supplier (EUS) can influence actors in its innovation ecosystem and the degree to which the effect of green public procur...

Vi vet lite om hvordan arbeidslivet ser ut om 30 år. Likevel er det en del utviklingstrekk som har gjort seg gjeldende de senere årene og som det kan være grunn til å tro vil forsterke seg i årene framover. Overordnet handler dette blant annet om en økende globalisering, automatisering og autonome systemer og nye måter å organisere arbeid og verdik...

Vi vet lite om hvordan arbeidslivet ser ut om 30 år. Likevel er det en del utviklingstrekk som har gjort seg gjeldende de senere årene og som det kan være grunn til å tro vil forsterke seg i årene framover. Overordnet handler dette blant annet om en økende globalisering, automatisering og autonome systemer og nye måter å organisere arbeid og verdik...

The construction sector is progressively becoming more circular by reducing waste, re-using building materials and adopting regenerative solutions for energy production and biodiversity protection. The implications of circularity on construction activities are complex and require the careful evaluation of impacts to select the appropriate path forw...

Scarcity of resources and climate change challenge the traditional "take-make-dispose" approach to value creation. Circular economy (CE) is a response to these challenges. However, until date, circular business models (CBMs) are not widespread. We apply the construct of absorptive capacity to explore the process of circular business model innovatio...

In a rapidly urbanizing world, cities form the key context for a sustainable transition. The neighborhood scale is suggested as a successful scale to realize cross-sector, inter-organizational collaborations. The multifaceted goals and resulting interdependencies in sustainable neighborhood (SN) developments seem to render them complex. Neighborhoo...

Sustainable neighborhood (SN) projects are crucial to alleviate the poor performance in energy consumption and carbon emissions of built environments. However, with several additional interests and priorities relating to sustainability, the job of finding common ground in collaboration becomes more complex compared to conventional housing and neigh...

As a component of the urban fabric system, zero-emission neighborhood (ZEN) projects represent an opportunity to boost the sustainable performance of cities. However, overlooking the potential of different actors or underestimating the complexity of interactions among them may threaten the projects themselves. Public procurement is a powerful tool...

While the importance of the decision-making role in sustainable supply chains is well established, explicit guidance for purchasers in utilizing available tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is lacking. How LCA can be operationalized by purchasers to carry out sustainable practices remains unclear, having received limited attention in the sup...

This paper presents an account of the coordination of purchasing activities in a firm that offshored their manufacturing operations that later turned problematic. Empirical data is drawn from a single in-depth case study within a large multinational company which was involved in production offshoring in 2009. The paper draws on the viable systems m...

Dear reader: thank you for taking an interest in our book on sustainable operations management! This is an edited book about what we and our co-contributors believe to be a topical and highly important issue. We also realize that this is an issue with political overtones that may cause divides and heated debates. Despite several global warnings and...

Purpose This paper aims to deliberate about the problem of tight and seamless integration in a supply chain by conceptualising and understanding how looseness and its creation represent an effective supply chain design. Design/methodology/approach This research is grounded in system theory and industrial network research, while the case study of a...

By conducting 67 semi-structured in-depth interviews and 15 focus group studies that have taken place in Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Spain, and Turkey, the aim of this report is to provide comprehensive policy recommendations addressing the three levels of formal social units defined as stakeholders in the ECHOES project: Formal social unit...

In green public procurement (GPP), policy driven environmental requirements are introduced in the formal procurement process with the aim to reduce the environmental impact through the life cycle of the procured goods and services. In practice, formal governance and policy requirements often appear disconnected, thereby limiting the progress of GPP...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the reform of public purchasing directives initiated by the European Union (EU) and discuss them in light of the criticism against existing public purchasing directives. Design/methodology/approach A literature review of empirical articles is critical to existing public purchasing directives to summa...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present three heuristics for choosing supplier selection criteria. By considering the balance between the expected relative effort and benefit of using different selection criteria, the heuristics suggest which criteria should be prioritized. The heuristics serve to develop our understanding of the search and...

Given the complexity of green public procurement, decisions are likely to be driven by bounded rationality. However, we know little about what determines supplier selection criteria in any given situation. This study explores buyer behavior when considering environmental criteria. We first conducted interviews and identified 12 operational procedur...

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to contribute to further advancing of IMP as a research field by setting up and starting a theoretical conversation between system theory and the IMP. Design/methodology/approach The approach is based on a narrative literature study and conceptual research. Findings The authors find that system theory and cy...

Purchasers are facing pressure to adopt greener purchasing strategies, and pass on this pressure to their suppliers. In this paper we present the first stages towards a systematic literature review of life cycle assessment (LCA) in public procurement. Our findings suggest that the literature on LCA-based selection criteria is limited. We aim to con...

Including environmental criteria in the supplier selection process complicates the decision-making of purchasers. The increasing pressure on purchasers to include environmental criteria raises the question how purchasers deal with this challenge. This paper assesses the inclusion of environmental criteria in supplier selection in the Norwegian publ...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is concerned with one of the main contributions from the field of management cybernetics, the Viable System Model (VSM) developed by Beer (1972). This paper analyses what happens in terms of the VSM when a firm engages in production offshoring. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is conceptual and develops fo...

This paper examines the existing literature on green supplier selection. In total, 60 articles are reviewed, all published in peer-reviewed journals between 1991 and 2011. The articles are analyzed in terms of several general variables such as type of research and theoretical viewpoint, as well as more specific variables such as the supply chain po...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider research that has been conducted on the offshoring of manufacturing activities, and more specifically to synthesize results regarding the question of how firms integrate and govern geographically dispersed production activities. Design/methodology/approach – A set of 100 carefully selected article...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effects of supplier development programs on the short‐term performance of suppliers and the more long‐term development of their capabilities given the relational learning context of the dyad. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey of strategic suppliers from original eq...

Green procurement is seen both as a public strategy to promote sustainable products and as a business strategy to improve environmental performance of the supply chain and thus meet demands for more environmentally friendly products, including from public institutions. Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a part of the national strategy for sustainabl...

In this article, we identify critical success factors for managing small and intensive purchasing groups by comparing successful and unsuccessful purchasing groups in a large-scale survey. The analysis of our data set suggests the following success factors: no enforced participation, sufficient total contribution of efforts, all members contribute...

Consumer pressure is usually considered as one of the major drivers for more environmental friendly products. During the last decade an increasing focus on public procurement has emerged as an important contributor to that pressure. In this paper we focus on the role of municipalities and counties in green public procurement. Based on surveys we in...

We consider the situation in which a buying organization deals with a discrete quantity discount schedule offered by a selling organization. Furthermore, the buying organization can negotiate with the selling organization about the lot size and purchase price, but does not know the underlying function that was used by the selling organization to de...

Certain purchasing groups do not flourish. A supposed reason for this is a creeping dissatisfaction among various members of a group with the allocation of the cooperative gains. In this paper, we analyze unfairness resulting from using the commonly used Equal Price (EP) method for allocating gains under the assumption of continuous quantity discou...

In this article, we identify success factors for managing small and intensive purchasing groups by comparing successful and unsuccessful Dutch purchasing groups in a large-scale survey. Transaction costs economics and social exchange theory are used as theoretical frameworks for our broad empirical investigation. We found that the success factors s...

Purpose – To develop a prescriptive model that provides effective guidance in the early stages of outsourcing processes, while taking into the decision-makers' bounded rationality. Design/methodology/approach – Provides an overview of existing prescriptive decision models for outsourcing based on literature review. Contrasts these models with empir...

Purpose – To investigate the status of third party logistics (3PL) in Mexico and the feasibility of 3PL as a global, uniform strategy. Design/methodology/approach – A survey among firms located in the central part of Mexico, followed by a comparison of the results with data from existing 3PL studies of Europe and the USA. Findings – 3PL seems a com...

Game theory proposes several allocation solutions: we know (a) fairness properties, (b) how to develop (c) methods building on these properties, and (d) how to calculate (e) allocations. We also know how to influence the perceived fairness and realization of allocation solutions. However, we cannot explain properly that theoretically fair allocatio...

This paper analyzes some consequences of formal methods and procedures for supplier selection. It argues that many mistakes and miracles may occur in frequently used procedures. Practical examples are given. In the analysis it turns out that preventing these unwanted effects from occurring may be tackled by methodological improvements. Some example...

In this paper we address the issue 'How do relationships begin?' Based on a review of work within the IMP Approach on stage and state models of relationship evolution, we conclude that very little attention has been paid to beginnings of relationships. We discuss why this might be so, and why the issue deserves more consideration. Based on a case s...

Se propone un modelo prescriptivo para guiar la decisión de tercerización

This paper discusses the problems and challenges that arise if a firm tries to concentrate purchasing activities in a separate organisational unit. For a variety of reasons, only a – small – part of all purchasing activities in an organisation is actually carried out by a purchasing department or a specialist. In particular, the purchasing of so-ca...

This paper reports on a series of multi-agent-based simulation experiments. The purpose of these experiments is to investigate how factors like task-complexity, availability of skills and corporate policies determine the degree to which a firm may benefit from a specific, dedicated purchasing department. Particular attention is paid to the purchasi...

In this paper an experimental study of formal decision-making models for supplier selection is described. Attention is paid to all phases of the supplier selection process: the recognition of the need for a new supplier, the formulation of decision criteria, the qualification of suitable candidates and final selection. It appears from the experimen...

In this paper we present a multi-agent simulation model to investigate purchasing activities in an organizational environment. The starting point is the observation that the majority of purchasing activities in organizations are usually performed without any involvement of the organization's purchasing department. The purpose of the experiments is...

This paper aims to contribute to the development of a conceptual model for studying the direct and indirect impact of various forms of electronic procurement (EP) on a firm's integral purchasing (-related) costs. The model builds on existing classifications of purchasing-related costs and benefits and is illustrated by means of empirical data. Buil...

This article presents a method for redesigning the ordering and inventory management methodologies for purchased parts in a manufacturing firm. The method takes the perspective of the purchasing and logistics manager, defines clusters of purchased items, and subsequently assigns each cluster to a suitable way of ordering and inventory management. A...

In this paper we present a Multi-Agent simulation model to investigate purchasing activities in an organizational environment. Starting point is the observation that the majority of purchasing activities in organizations is usually performed without any involvement of the organization's purchasing department. The purpose of the experiments is to in...

In this paper we present a review of decision methods reported in the literature for supporting the supplier selection process. The review is based on an extensive search in the academic literature. We position the contributions in a framework that takes the diversity of procurement situations in terms of complexity and importance into account and...

In this paper we present a review of decision methods reported in the literature for supporting the supplier selection process. The review is based on an extensive search in the academic literature. We position the contributions in a framework that takes the diversity of procurement situations in terms of complexity and importance into account and...

In this paper we consider what is the current practice when a purchaser has to decide on the number of bids he wants to receive in a tender procedure. Furthermore we look to what extent a formal model, the so-called ETQ-model, together with a DSS can be useful in facilitating and improving that decision. The validity of the model assumptions is ana...

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...

This paper aims to contribute to the development of a model for assessing the direct and indirect impact of various forms of electronic procurement (EP) on a firm's integral purchasing (-related) costs. The model builds on existing classifications of purchasing costs and benefits and is illustrated by means of a number of empirical cases.

In this paper, we consider the decision a purchaser must make regarding the number of suppliers that should be invited to submit a tender for a certain purchase. On the one hand, the costs of sending invitations to tender, the costs of evaluating the tenders received, and the costs of communicating the outcome to the suppliers that were not selecte...

In this paper, we consider the decision a purchaser must make regarding the number of suppliers that should be invited to submit a tender for a certain purchase. On the one hand, the costs of sending invitations to tender, the costs of evaluating the tenders received, and the costs of communicating the outcome to the suppliers that were not selecte...

Today we observe an continuing challenge to develop performance measures that evaluate purchasing effectiveness relative to the organization's objectives and to extend conventional measurement systems to an entreprise-wide purchasing control function that detects the 'weak sports' in the purchasing function. In this paper we address the observed ch...

Initial purchasing decisions such as make-or-buy decisions and supplier selection are decisions of strategic importance to companies. The nature of these decisions usually is complex and unstructured. Management Science techniques might be helpful tools for this kind of decision making problems. So far, however, the application of outranking method...

The purchasing function is of great importance for the business community as well as for governmental organizations. In industrial companies purchasing already accounts for 60 to 90 percent of total turnover. This share is expected to grow as companies tend to increasingly outsource their non-core activities. In governmental organizations purchasi...

This paper is concerned with deciding on how and when to make purchasing decisions. Such a strategy for decision making, (in short: a decision strategy), is often only made unconsciously and/or lacks sufficient differentiation. In other words: purchasers take many decisions as they come, rely strictly on experience and common sense for solving them...

Cooperative purchasing is becoming more and more common practice. However, many cooperative initiatives end prematurely or do not flourish. Important reasons indicated for these problems are directly or indirectly related to the unfair division of gains. The purpose of this paper is to indicate causes of unfairness effects in current cooperative pr...