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This paper aims to identify purchasing-related costs through the prism of transaction costs and costs of purchasing management activity.

The authors conducted a survey among 150 medium and large manufacturing companies in the chemical, automotive and electromechanical industries operating in Central and Eastern European countries. The collected data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis.

The studied companies carry out an integrated purchasing-related cost system. The authors found a statistical significance of the covariances between the pretransaction, transaction and post-transaction costs. In addition, costs that are of particular importance in long-term purchasing transactions were identified. Moreover, the authors identified the costs of quality and support actions as the most significant.

This research details the discussion of costs with consideration for the insights of managers of medium-sized and large companies.

The paper contributes to the knowledge of purchasing-related costs through the lens of the total cost of ownership that influences the purchasing management and the decisions within the buyer-supplier relationship.

This paper aims to identify the occupational profiles of a logistics and a supply chain (SC) controller, both promising SC professions, examining the required competences and tasks undertaken while taking into account current trends in supply chain management and its wider dimensions.

The study used a content analysis based on job advertisements for the position of logistics controller and SC controller. The collected material allowed the construction of an occupational competence mix model in the style of Cheetham and Chivers for the logistics and SC controller, and the identification of the level of competence of both professions, using the model proposed by Czapla. In addition, the analysis of the data was supplemented by use of the Anova test and a radar chart.

The SC and logistics controllers have a high degree of similarity in both the meta and core competences areas. Similarities also occur in the case of the analysed groups of tasks undertaken by these professions. Tasks in the areas of “definition” and “maintaining” prevail. The SC controller and the logistics controller are considered “engaged inspirers” because they have reached this level of professional competence. Both these professions can ensure an effective, sustainable and transparent SC through direct cooperation with the SC manager and/or logistics manager.

This study uses a content analysis based on job advertisements addressed to the German market. These job advertisements are standardized, and therefore, provide only a general outline of the competences and tasks of the SC and logistics controllers.

The study provides information to practitioners by identifying the competences and tasks assigned to the SC and logistics controllers that are needed to improve the efficiency and transparency of the SC and its management. The research is an incentive for people involved in education to adapt changes in curricula in the business (accounting, controlling and logistics) and engineering (related to logistics) fields of study by creating courses based on SC controlling or/and logistics controlling.

The study shows the current, necessary changes for SC professionals (e.g. the appointment of a SC controller and/or logistics controller) resulting from changes in business and the challenges for SC management (e.g. transparency and sustainability).

This paper aims to explore controls within an inter-organisational relationship involving outsourced management accounting services from the contractor’s perspective.

Qualitative data from within the relationship are analysed in a legitimacy-theory framework, illustrating how controls within the relationship are intended to build the contractor’s legitimacy and what kinds of implications the controls have in relation to conflicts between interests inherent in the relationship.

The legitimacy perspective clarifies that while controls are aimed at ensuring efficiency for the client, they may also provide symbolic displays of the appropriateness of the contractor’s actions both at an inter-organisational level for the client and at an individual level for the contractor’s employees. While the contractor intends to build legitimacy with the client by demonstrating utility in the form of efficiency, the process also gives the client influence and allows the disposition in terms of shared values to be demonstrated. However, this process has some negative consequences for the contractor’s employees as it is insufficient for serving the boundary-spanning employees’ interests connected with the nature of their work. Hence, the same controls need to yield benefits and fair outcomes for employees. The controls simultaneously foster interconnections that contribute to permanence and formalise the outsourcing of complex services, thereby rendering such processes comprehensible and transferable to other settings, which can be seen to serve the contractor’s continuity interests.

The paper contributes to academic research by illustrating how controls within inter-organisational relationships not only steer boundary-spanners’ work to conform to a client’s needs but may also help to build legitimacy via symbolic properties in the presence of conflicting interests at both an inter-organisational and individual level. It specifically highlights the important role of boundary-spanners lower in the organisational structure, who both affect and are influenced by the intentions to build legitimacy with the client.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the similarities and differences of occupational identity among logistics managers, controllers and specialists.

After a thorough review of the literature, the authors opted for desk research and content analysis of job advertisements for these three occupations as the major research method, focusing on a sample of 60 Polish and German advertisements.

The analysis of these data confirmed that the three occupations have their own identity (although there is a certain closeness between controllers and managers), but, from a holistic perspective of logistics management considering current trends in logistics, these three occupations should be integrated as a whole.

This has been the first paper comparing ads focused on logistics professionals in two relevant European economies in terms of logistics development: Poland and Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of the work of management accountants in the context of a shared services centre.

A single case study method is used and data are collected via semi-structured interviews and internal documents. The empirical materials are analysed from the theoretical perspective of dirty work, incorporating aspects from practice theory.

Findings suggest that management accountants working in a shared services centre develop their occupational esteem by refocusing and reframing strategies. Through these strategies, management accountants can decrease the perceived “dirtiness” associated with their work.

The study sheds light on the under-researched topic of management accountants’ work within a shared services centre. Moreover, it offers the metaphor of liminal work to characterise how management accountants develop their occupational esteem in circumstances where gaining efficiency is the main objective.