Catherine Xiaocui Lou

1. Introduction Traditionally, across a range of industries, procurement activities have focused on balancing price and quality. Increasingly, with the assistance of government initiatives, there has been an observable shift in focus in many large-scale procurement programs, drawing upon the social benefit potential of procurement. Social procurement differs from traditional procurement.

1. Introduction Collaborative relationships in supply chains assist firms in reducing cost, improving services, creating technological innovation, sharing risk, gaining complementary resources and increasing productivity []. Collaborative integration of information technology can significantly improve supply chain agility, thereby enhancing firms’ competitive advantage.

Open AccessArticle by 1,*, 1 and 2 1 Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC 3030, Australia 2 Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih 43500, Malaysia * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.