Navigating the socio-technical impacts of purchasing digitalisation: A multiple-case study

The wave of digitalisation is impacting companies at multiple levels. Beside the most researched impacts on manufacturing, also other business functions are subjected to the change. Among them, purchasing is expected to greatly benefit from digitalisation, if properly managed. This research analyses the digitalisation of the purchasing process, in terms of how and why it happens, and the co-evolution which is triggered on the social dimension. A multiple-case study approach is adopted, analysing eight companies from industries characterized by different digital intensity levels but all at a relatively advanced stage of digitalisation of the purchasing department. The results show how different technological innovation approaches (i.e., automation and/or augmentation) impact the evolution of the purchasing department's social dimension in terms of autonomy, job enlargement, competences, internal and external collaboration. A new framework describing how automation and augmentation impact on purchasing social dimension, as well as purchasing efficiency and effectiveness, is proposed as main theoretical contribution. The study combines the socio-technical systems perspective with the automation-augmentation paradox and describe the strong relationship between purchasing departments' social and technical dimensions, offering managers insights on handling a purchasing digitalisation process, simultaneously managing the technical and social dimensions impacted along the process.