Socially responsible purchasing has a positive impact on the performance, trust and cooperation of the supplier base. The likely impact would be felt by both the sponsor company and the supplier organisations. In conversations with practitioners in the sponsor company, cost and difficulty to implement were frequently cited as reasons for purchasing and supply managers’ reluctance to participate in such activities. The literature review has also revealed that there is a dearth of practicable methodologies for implementing CSR in the purchasing environment. If a methodology could be developed to allow ethical purchasing practices, it would mean that a supplier could invest in improvements to infrastructure, reaching higher levels of performance and quality at lower costs.
The study featured in this paper has outlined a process for the evaluation of an automotive organisation’s suppliers by CSR measures. The CSR evaluation process identified which suppliers should be considered for the CSR audit. This process is significant because it gave the purchasing manager, of the sponsor organisation, an objective basis for decision-making. The process outlined provides a questionnaire and scoring and weighting functionality delivered through an integrated tool.
The responses from the organisation and of the evaluation panel validate this methodology in both academic rigor and real-world industrial practice. A number of pointers for the future development of the CSR evaluation process are also provided by this panel. In particular, mention is given to the opportunity of integrating the tool more closely with strategy and policy procedures of an organisation. There is scope for the further development of the tool through its use in sectors beyond the automotive industry, such as the retail sector. The retail industry, as a sector for further study, also offers the possibility to integrate customer purchasing habits and opinions into the CSR evaluation process, leading to the potential identification of innovative product combinations sourced from otherwise overlooked niche suppliers.