Ethical challenges of procurement due to supply disruptions

The article aims to contribute to understanding how supply problems and power imbalances in buyer–supplier relationships affected the ethics of procurement. The analysis compares the challenges in the corporate and public procurement sectors. The paper analyses the responses of 157 procurement practitioners to a survey. To interpret the responses, 19 practitioners were involved in workshops. The findings are that the nature of ethical challenges has changed significantly due to supply problems. Corporate procurement has responded with advanced toolkits and significant organisational support, thus perceiving ethical dilemmas much less than in public procurement, where uncertainty, time pressure, stricter regulations and supplier power have significantly increased the perception of unethical behaviour. There have been some changes in the social issues faced by both fields. The article examines the differences between the two domains through the theoretical framework of ethical climate theory.