06:35 Nov 24, 2009 

I agree with Jutta, and suspect the German "Richtlinienfunktion" might have made its way into the sentence only because someone tried to put the English term "line management" into German. "Line management" would make perfect sense in this context, imho. ("...as part of the line management function within the Country Management Model)

22:07 Nov 23, 2009 

I suppose this refers to what we call "fachliche und disziplinarische Vorgesetzte" - the latter being the line manager, the former the person with managerial authority in a particular region or field of expertise. The two can overlap in some types of organization.
If this is the case here, "Richtlinienfunktion" means that, in addition to his/her direct reports, the manager in question also has managerial authority over local procurement processes (although he/she is not the head of purchasing) by virtue of his/her being the country manager.
Hope I'm making myself clear.