Bargaining power of suppliers

Written on 16 October 2015. Posted in Developing managerial skills

In order to evaluate the attractiveness and profitability of an industry, a second force we need to look at is the bargaining power of suppliers. Porter’s five forces model helps us do this. In his article ‘The five competitive forces that shape strategy’ published by Harvard Business Review in 2008, he explains his theory. The stronger this force is the more it erodes profitability. The weaker it is, the more profitability stays within the industry. A supplier group has a strong bargaining power when:

the supplier group is more concentrated than the industry it sells to (e.g. monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies)
the supplier group does not depend heavily on the industry for its revenues
industry participants face high switching costs in changing suppliers (to consider that suppliers may bear switching costs as well which may limit their power)
suppliers offer products that are differentiated
there is no substitute for what a supplier group provides (e.g. there is no alternative to a well-trained pilot in the cockpit!)

All in all, it is important to consider how strong this force is and to what extent it may erode profitability within the industry so as to take the right steps in business.

Rethinking the Adaptive Leadership model through the Italian Adaptive Leadership Behavior Questionnaire

Since Heifetz designed the adaptive leadership framework in 1994, the academic literature has benefitted from many qualitative research studies focusing on specific adaptive challenges and how the adaptive leadership framework can be practically used to face these. It seems very few have dealt with adaptive leadership through the quantitative lens and have attempted to measure adaptive leadership behaviors or tested Heifetz’s adaptive leadership six-dimensional model. In response, my PhD research aimed to measure the perception of adaptive leadership behaviors across the Italian corporate context and to investigate whether Heifetz’s adaptive leadership model can apply to the Italian culture. Findings and contribution to knowledge can be read in the thesis: Novellini, P. (2023) Rethinking the Adaptive Leadership model through the Italian Adaptive Leadership Behavior Questionnaire, PhD thesis, University of Sunderland.

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Novellini - Hall Italian Adaptive Leadership Behavior Questionnaire

Do you want to measure the perception of adaptive leadership within your company or team? You can use 'Novellini - Hall Adaptive Leadership Behaviour Questionnaire', a new tool in the literature of leadership. This questionnaire was designed especially to be used in the business environment with a perspective on the higher level figures in the hierarchy. However, you can use it in any type of environment and at any level by adapting the terminology to the reality you want to focus on.

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