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The Buying Center: Structure and Interaction Patterns
Abstract
This article reports a first step toward developing some quantifiable dimensions of the industrial buying task group, called the buying center. Group composition and interaction processes were examined for purchases of capital equipment and industrial services in 31 firms. Data were analyzed to test the soundness of a communications network perspective on the buying center and the managerial implications of such a perspective. Equipment and service purchase measures differed reliably across several indices suggested by our theoretical orientation. Organizational structure and purchase situation attributes correlated in generally expected directions with the dimensions of the buying group.
... The customer journey concept is considered particularly useful in describing purchase processes in contemporary digitalized markets, where buyers are less reliant on sellers because of their almost unlimited access to information from digital sources (Ancillai, Terho, Cardinali, & Pascucci, 2019;. The journey concept can enrich and broaden traditional research on organizational buying (see Choffray & Lilien, 1978;Johnston & Bonoma, 1981a, 1981bSheth, 1973;Webster, 1965) in two important ways. First, the concept is inherently customer-centric: it can offer a contextual and dynamic understanding of individual organizational members' purchasing paths, which are composed of diverse touchpoints, some of which are outside the seller's control (Edelman & Singer, 2015). ...
... Thus far, only a handful of studies have discussed B2B customer journeys, noting that the special features of the B2B buying context may hamper the applicability of existing consumerfocused journey conceptualizations (Witell et al., 2020;Zolkiewski et al., 2017). In contrast to consumer contexts, B2B purchases involve multiple professionals who are at least to some degree governed by formal rules and procedures, and driven by various organizational and individual goals (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981b;Lewin & Donthu, 2005;Macdonald, Kleinaltenkamp, & Wilson, 2016). Thus, new research that addresses the role of the buying and usage center in customer journeys is needed to expand the application domain of the concept to B2B contexts. ...
... This definition situates the concepts of the buying center (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981b) and the usage center (Macdonald et al., 2016) within customer journeys and highlights their relevance in contemporary B2B marketing. Importantly, the offered conceptualization broadens the scope of most journey frameworks by placing equal importance on the purchase and usage stages of the B2B customer journey and acknowledging its embeddedness in business relationships. ...
Marketing practitioners and consultants have widely adopted the concept of customer journeys for use in analyzing contemporary B2B customer behavior, but despite this concept's potential, research on B2B customer journeys remains in its infancy. This study conceptualizes the B2B customer journey by synthesizing research on customer journeys, B2B purchase processes and buying centers, and business relationships. The study contributes to the extant research by explicating the conceptual underpinnings and core elements of the B2B customer journey, as well as by providing a novel, customer-centric definition of the concept. The developed conceptual framework for B2B customer journeys connects the concept with goal-oriented buying and usage center members , placing equal importance on the purchase and usage stages of the journey and acknowledging its iterative nature and embeddedness in relationships. Thus, the conceptualization offers a comprehensive, up-to-date perspective on B2B customer behavior that is applicable in diverse areas of B2B marketing, such as customer experience management, digital marketing, sales, service management, and service design.
... Further, an increased complexity of the product requires that a larger number of technical experts are involved to develop and evaluate available alternatives (Kotteaku et al., 1995), due to higher information requirements (Geok-Theng et al., 1999). On the contrary, McQuiston (1989) did not find a significant relationship between complexity and the amount of communication in the decision process; moreover, Johnston and Bonoma (1981) did not confirm enhanced divisional involvement with an increase of complexity. With respect to purchase familiarity, OBB researchers agree that a rise in purchase novelty causes increased communication among decision-process participants (McQuiston, 1989) and higher levels of departmental representation in the decision-making process (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981). ...
... On the contrary, McQuiston (1989) did not find a significant relationship between complexity and the amount of communication in the decision process; moreover, Johnston and Bonoma (1981) did not confirm enhanced divisional involvement with an increase of complexity. With respect to purchase familiarity, OBB researchers agree that a rise in purchase novelty causes increased communication among decision-process participants (McQuiston, 1989) and higher levels of departmental representation in the decision-making process (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981). ...
... Moreover, two out of three contextual factors identified in the OBB literature were validated. Regarding purchase novelty, the findings partially agree with prior OBB studies, which claim that higher purchase novelty instigates higher departmental participation and increases communication (McQuiston, 1989;Johnston and Bonoma, 1981), as well as with Riedl et al. (2013), who claim that for medium to high purchase novelty decision-making is more rational. The cases show that in two decision-making archetypes purchase novelty induces increased information exchange. ...
Purpose - This article develops a taxonomy of sourcing decision-making (SDM) archetypes and explores how different contextual factors influence these archetypes when global sourcing of complex components is considered a viable option.
Design/methodology/approach - A multiple case study approach with five in-depth cases is employed. In total, 19 interviews as well as publicly available and internal data from large buying firms headquartered in Austria and Germany were collected and analyzed.
Findings - The results reveal three different SDM archetypes which are described in detail (i.e., 'consensus', 'argumentation' and 'cabal'). Furthermore, it is found that these archetypes are mainly influenced by three contextual factors: sourcing maturity, product complexity and leadership style. The final model comprises six propositions which illustrate how these contextual factors determine companies' SDM archetypes.
Research limitations/implications - The study contributes to theory development at the intersection of organizational buying behavior and the (global) sourcing decision-making literature. Thereby, it answers the call for more rigorous investigation of the influence of contextual factors on SDM processes.
Practical implications - The findings enable practitioners to better understand and consequently manage SDM processes and their outcomes. By supporting decision-makers in identifying SDM archetypes, this study allows sourcing managers and teams to make better decisions by avoiding problems that occur in situations in which the preferred decision-making type would result in suboptimal decisions.
Originality/value - The study provides a first step towards a taxonomy of SDM archetypes and is among the first that explores their underlying contextual factors.
... Elle s'est néanmoins peu penchée sur les instruments de politiques de R&D et d'innovation (Martin, 2016). La référence en matière d'instruments d'API est l'article de Georghiou, Elder, Uyarra et Yeow (2014) Outre cette liste non-exhaustive d'instruments, Cave et Frinking (2003) identifient différentes modalités de mise en oeuvre des initiatives d'API, parmi lesquelles la durée des contrats, la formulation des spécifications dans le cahier des charges, la composition de l'équipe d'achat (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981), et les modes de paiement. Il apparaît que, lorsque les API sont utilisés pour encourager l'innovation dans des secteurs ou technologies stratégiques, la demande publique doit être liée à la privée (Edler and Georghiou, 2007). ...
... In addition to this non-exhaustive list of policy measures, Cave and Frinking (2003) identify various modalities of implementation of PPI, including the time-length of contracts, the way specifications are phrased in calls for tenders (prescriptive or functional), the composition of the procurement team (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981), and the modes of payment. When PPI is used to encourage innovation in strategic sectors and/or technologies, public demand must be linked up with private demand (Edler and Georghiou, 2007). ...
... Because our aim is to identify failures in collaborations between public procurers and suppliers from their respective perspectives, we needed interviewees with experience in PPI. In public organisations, several individuals and departments are involved in public procurement decisions (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981), e.g. public procurement department, legal and financial departments, end-users and/or operational departments, and, sometimes, elected representatives. ...
An increasing number of OECD countries has adopted measures to encourage the use of public procurement to foster innovation. However, implementation of public procurement of innovation (PPI) is lagging behind policy discourse. The ambition of this dissertation is to address this discrepancy by assisting in the design of PPI initiatives, that is, by identifying the innovation-related failures that PPI can overcome, and the most appropriate policy instruments and practices for achieving this objective. We define eight PPI ideal-types according to the type of meso-level market of system failures they address. These failures can relate to users, producers or to their mutual interactions. We confront them with macro-level failures, and determine accordingly the contribution of each PPI ideal-type to distinct mission-oriented policies. Our typology provides a unified PPI framework associating their rationales with their design. Therefore, it contributes to policymaking, and to policy evaluation and analysis. Some PPI categories aim to spur innovation by stimulating the formation of markets. We employ an evolutionary approach to analyse the influence of PPI at the different stages of the dynamic process of market formation through a series of selected existing case studies. We demonstrate that PPI can underpin the different phases of knowledge coordination for market formation, by ensuring appropriate interactions between users and producers early in the public procurement procedure. The literature on private procurement nevertheless shows that early supplier involvement is subject to a number of micro-level failures having their root in procurement practices. Based on interviews with public procurers and suppliers, we identify relevant collaboration failures related to the standard PPI and competitive dialogue procedures. We highlight differences in these failures and their loci between the two procedures. Furthermore, public procurers and suppliers appear to have different perception of the causes of the failures they have encountered. Finally, our findings discuss the influence of the legal framework on PPI and suggest additional PPI procedures and strategies that are favoured by suppliers to varying extents. In sum, our research identifies innovation-related failures at different levels that PPI can resolve, and relevant instruments to help PPI initiative to achieve their objectives. Furthermore, it advocates a dynamic approach considering failures, instruments, and practices at different stages of public procurement procedures, and market formation and public procurer-supplier collaboration processes.
... The impact of this phenomenon on decision-making has been investigated in the organizational buying literature under the rubric of the buying center which comprises all individual actors, inside or outside of a purchasing firm, that are directly and indirectly involved in the buying processes (e.g. Bonoma, 1982;Choffray & Lilien, 1978;Johnston & Bonoma, 1981;Webster & Wind, 1972). This multi-actor perspective has been extended to the customer side and its organizational usage processes (Huber & Kleinaltenkamp, 2018;Macdonald, Kleinaltenkamp, & Wilson, 2016) under the heading of the usage center, which "…comprises, from the perspective of a single actor, all resource integrators that draw on a focal resource within a usage process" (Kleinaltenkamp, Plewa, Gudergan, Karpen, & Chen, 2017, p. 721). ...
... Notably, the individual actor's perspective on value has not been addressed by the IMM citation classics on value. Despite the wellknown importance of personal motivations for supplier selection (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981), value in business markets has largely been conceptualized at the level of the collective firm in the extant literature . Recent research, however, increasingly emphasizes the importance of value creation and value perceptions in business markets at the individual level (Huber & Kleinaltenkamp, 2018;Macdonald et al., 2016). ...
The value concept is key to understanding purchasing and marketing decisions in business markets. Despite its importance, a lack of clarity surrounding the conceptualization of value in business-to-business markets persists. This paper develops an integrative framework that identifies the various conceptualizations of value and maps the most often cited value papers published in IMM on this framework. The integrative framework makes distinctions between the value beneficiary (i.e., collective and individual value perceptions), the underlying value perspective (i.e., customers’ and suppliers’ value perceptions), and the reference object of value (i.e., transactional value based on expectations or experiences, and value of relationships). Positioning the IMM citation classics papers on this integrative framework allows us to identify core areas and promising research avenues for this key concept. In particular, we identify a need to further explore individual actors’ value perceptions and the usage processes that lead to experienced value in use in business markets.
... In this paper we argue that this view is insufficient for conceptualizing engagement (see also Nunan, Sibai, Schivinski, & Christodoulides, 2018), particularly in organizational contexts: recent organizational and occupational psychology research (e.g., Costa, Passos, & Bakker, 2014;García Buades, Martínez-Tur, Ortiz-Bonin, & Peiro, 2016;Schneider, Yost, Kropp, Kind, & Lam, 2017) suggests that engagement may also be a collective construct. The prevalence of the collective manifests in common organizational concepts like work teams (e.g., Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998), the buying center (e.g., Johnston & Bonoma, 1981), and the usage center (Macdonald, Kleinaltenkamp, & Wilson, 2016, Huber & Kleinaltenkamp, 2019. Moreover, many organizational examples anecdotally demonstrate the relevance of engagement on a collective level: Consider joint innovation projects in which employees from the customer and supplier firms work within and across internal and external organizational units. ...
... Yet ultimately, these various conceptualizations persist in considering individual actors and their positions in a collective (e.g., roles in the buying center) rather than capturing the collective and their collective behaviors. For example, various attempts to determine group preferences (Brinkmann & Voeth, 2007;Choffray & Lilien, 1978) or capture influences of networks of actors (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981) have not gained widespread acceptance in either science or practice. Although they offer theoretical brilliance and persuasiveness, they lack explanatory power, because their empirical verifiability remains limited. ...
Customer engagement has emerged as a central concept in marketing. Despite extensive scholarly investigations and managerial interest though, considerations of customer engagement and emotional connections in business marketing have been scant. Researchers tend to focus on individual-level engagement, which is conceptually inadequate to address the inherently multi-actor nature of business-to-business marketing. Therefore, this article introduces the concept of collective engagement, highlighting both its characteristics and the conditions for its emergence. The resulting theoretical framework, with ten propositions, outlines the multidimensional nature of collective engagement, including its multiplicative aggregation, multidirectional valence, phenomenological and shared properties, emotional and institutional interdependence, and emergence in dynamic and multichannel settings. Collective engagement also offers a mechanism for considering emotions in business marketing, a topic that thus far has been largely ignored by the prevalent rational choice paradigm. Thus, this article contributes a systematic, coherent conceptualization of collective engagement and advances the theoretical domains of customer and actor engagement in particular and business-to-business research in general, while also suggesting a detailed research agenda.
... As called for by Astley and Sachdeva (1984), it simul- taneously examines a comprehensive set of influence determinants (e.g., reward power, expert power) to as- sess their relative importance. 2. In line with the calls by Johnston and Bonoma (1981) and Wind (1978a,b), it investigates whether the effec- tiveness of individual determinants is contingent on buying center characteristics (e.g., size) and situational variables (e.g., time pressure). Such an investigation has not been done previously, though recently some atten- tion has been directed to contingency relationships in nonorganizational contexts (cf. ...
... Whereas previous studies have addressed the ante- cedents of buying center structure (e.g., Johnston and Bonoma 1981;Spekman and Stem 1979), little in- vestigation has been done on how buying center char- acteristics interact with different power bases of an individual. Similiarly, little research has examined the effectiveness of different power bases across varia- tions in situational characteristics such as time pres- sure (see Levitt 1965 andMoriarity 1986 for two exceptions). ...
The author investigates factors that affect an individual's influence in a buying center. A field investigation of 251 organizational purchase decisions suggests that expert power is the most important influence determinant, followed by reinforcement power. Interestingly, the effectiveness of individual power bases is found to vary with buying center size, viscidity, time pressure, and the strength of accompanying influence attempts. New measures of different types of power and influence in group settings are developed, validated, and offered for use in future research.
... Similar to previous industrial buying behavior field studies (e.g., Corey 1978, Johnston andBonoma 1981;Pettigrew 1975), the selections of the particular pur- chase items were unsystematic in that the primary contacts in the firm were asked to identify important items purchased under PP As for which requirements or Requests for Quotation (RFQs) were currently being prepared. To sharpen the research focus, items having annual purchase volume of more than $100,000 were selected. ...
... The interview process was termi- nated when no new individuals were identified who had taken part in the decision process. This interview technique, known as snowball interviewing, has been used successfully by other researchers (e.g., Johnston and Bonoma 1981, Moriarity and Bateson 1980, Spekman and Stern 1979. ...
Decision systems analysis, participant observation, and document analysis were used to collect data on the activities, decisions, and interactions of persons involved in 18 plant purchasing agreements (PPAs) in six industrial firms. PPAs are statements of intention to buy (and sell) a quantity of a specified production or nonproduction material within a given time period, usually a year or more. A descriptive, composite model of activities, decisions, and interactions is presented. Differences and similarities across the 18 PPAs investigated in the study are reviewed. Implications for theory development and for marketing management are offered.
... Thus, although the specific resources are the same and the collective goals of their usage may be alike for the different users (Ulaga & Eggert, 2006), the experienced value in use largely differs (Macdonald et al., 2016). In addition, B2B research mostly assumes that value is related only to collective goals that are connected with the customer firm or one of its departments, despite the known importance of personal assessments in buying decisions (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981). Therefore, to capture the complete phenomenological origin of value related to a specific beneficiary (Vargo & Lusch, 2016), it is necessary to grasp value-in-use perceptions not only of organizational goals but also of individual goals and to understand the relationship between individual and collective value-in-use constructs (Macdonald et al., 2016). ...
... First, this stream of literature is rooted in its orientation on buying decisions. Considering the allegedly trivial power of users in the buying process (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981;Rolfes, 2007;Webster & Wind, 1972), precise analyses of users are not performed. Second, the functions single actors may take in buying decisions as well as the buying process itself are restricted by time (Günter, 1990;Morris & Freedman, 1984). ...
Repurchase in business-to-business settings is driven by relational outcomes like satisfaction. Recent research suggests that these are mainly determined by the customer perceived value in use, which stems from the customers' experiences within the usage of products and services. This usage usually takes place in multi-actor usage processes, which encompass a multitude of interactions between the users of a focal resource, the members of a business usage center. These users typically perceive the processes and interactions differently depending on their position, responsibilities, expertise, mood, etc. As the actors follow various multiple goals on the individual and collective levels, they perceive the value in use of the same product or service typically differently. Thus, understanding the interactions during organizational usage processes is crucial for grasping the peculiarities of value cocreation in business-to-business usage processes. Hence, we develop a typology of business usage center members through 20 interviews using repertory grid technique and means–end chaining. We elicit five types of users based on 32 characteristics of perceived behaviors in organizational usage processes: Lead, Doer, Soldier, Maven, and Laggard. Furthermore, we show how the characteristics and types influence the actors' value-in-use perceptions and their behaviors toward a focal resource and their co-workers.
... 1. Team decisions are common. The differing roles and goals of the decision-making team is discussed under the term buying center (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981). 2. The customer behavior of not taking ANY action is often considered the main competitor for many sellers. ...
... This requires developing both internal relationships within the firm and business-tobusiness relationships with customers (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981). However, relationships are not sufficient as skills and capabilities of actors are also needed. ...
Purpose:
This research investigates interfunctional coordination (IC) in a B-to-B context. More specifically, it explores the role of digitalization as a strategic driver for an effective IC.
Design/methodology/approach:
Following a qualitative methodology, three studies have been integrated: Study 1 (focus group with five participants); Study 2 (31 in-depth interviews with top executives); Study 3 (online focus group with 9 experts).
Findings:
One finding is that digitalization is the main driver for IC and can be considered strategic. Other findings show that digitalization can enhance IC, but it was also found that digitalization can have negative side effects on IC.
Originality/value:
This study contributes to the understanding of the importance of digitalization on IC and also contributes to the conceptualization of IC as a dynamic capability.
... In selecting our cases, we control for the level of perceived risk associated with the service, since traditional Organizational Buying Behavior (OBB) literature suggests that perceived risk is an important factor in explaining buying behavior (Johnston & Lewin, 1996). For example: Johnston and Bonoma (1981) and later McQuiston (1989) demonstrate in their research that the functions/ people involved in interactions with suppliers vary with the novelty, complexity and importance of a purchase. Author reference 1 (2006) investigated the influence of perceived risk on buyer-seller interaction and demonstrated that patterns of interaction are stronger for services characterized by high risk. ...
... 598 Vgl.Fließ et al. (2015), S. 180. 599 Vgl.Robinson et al. (1967).600Vgl.Brand (1972), Weiter differenzierten Johnston und Bonoma nach Wertklassen.Johnston undBonoma (1981),Robinson et al. (1967).601Vgl.Brand (1972).602Vgl.Backhaus und Voeth (2014), S. 44f 603 Vgl. Choffray und.604Vgl. ...
Mobile Applikationen gewinnen in Unternehmen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Der betriebliche Trend zur Einführung von Mobile Business Apps folgt der Entwicklung, die im privaten Nutzungskontext seit Jahren anhält. Betrieblich genutzte Mobile Business Apps der ersten Generation unterstützen in der Regel fragmentierte Querschnittsaufgaben, wie Kommunikation oder Filesharing. Seit ein paar Jahren entwickelt sich der Trend in Unternehmen weiter zu spezialisierten Mobile Business Apps aus der Cloud. Hierzu zählen unternehmensindividuell angepasste Mobile Business Apps, die zur Unterstützung von mobil arbeitenden Mitarbeitern bei spezifischen Transaktionen dienen. Bei der Beschaffung von Mobile Business Apps stehen Entscheider der IT-Abteilungen vor einer Herausforderung, die sich in Komplexität und Umfang nach der Art der zu beschaffenden Mobile Business App richtet. So sind etwa nutzungsoffene Mobile Business Apps out-of-the-box für Querschnittsaufgaben recht einfach, zu vergleichsweise niedrigen Kosten, implementierbar. Die Beschaffung und Einführung nutzungsspezifischer Mobile Business Apps der zweiten Generation, stellen hingegen eher komplexe Unterfangen dar. Phasenmodellen des betrieblichen Software-Beschaffungsablaufs folgend, werden von den Entscheidungsbeteiligten Informationen zu Software und Hersteller konsumiert, wobei keine Aussage über die Quelle der Informationen getroffen wird. Die vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich nun der Frage, ob im betrieblichen Kontext Kundenrezensionen genutzt werden, da diese in öffentlich zugängigen App Shops verfügbar sind. Dem Trend des Konsumgütermarketings folgend, ist die Wahrnehmung von Kundenrezensionsinformation Gegenstand zahlreicher wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten, häufig unter Nutzung der Modelle der persuasiven Informationsverarbeitung. Grundlegend wird die Frage gestellt, nach welchen Merkmalen die zahlreichen und verschiedenen Typen von Mobile Business Apps, im Hinblick auf die Beschaffungsaufgabe, eingeordnet werden können. Die Analyse der Kundenrezensionsinformation in App Shops dient zur Darstellung, welche Typen von Informationsfragmenten in Kundenrezensionen zur Verfügung stehen. Unter Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Typen von Mobile Business Apps, wird die Frage beantwortet, welche Typen von Informationen aus Kundenrezensionen von Entscheidern als nützlich beurteilt werden. Somit wird ein Forschungsbeitrag zu Einflussfaktoren auf die wahrgenommene Nützlichkeit der Informationen geleistet. Teil des Forschungsbeitrags ist zudem die Untersuchung subjektiver Zuschreibungen und Heuristiken der Nachfrager, die eine Aussage über die wahrgenommene Vertrauenswürdigkeit von Kundenrezensionen zulassen. Unter Diversifizierung dreier verschiedener Beschaffungs-Konstellationen, den betrieblichen Einzelkaufentscheidungen, den Buying Centern mit IT-Experten bei der Beschaffung von nutzungsoffenen Business Apps und, als Drittes, den nutzungsspezifischen Mobile Business Apps, werden Experten zu Ihrer Wahrnehmung und Praxis befragt. Diese Arbeit schließt mit Handlungsempfehlungen für Business-App-Hersteller und App-Shop-Betreiber und identifiziert weiteren Forschungsbedarf.
... Our interviewees noted several key dif- ferences surrounding the procurement mission in B2G rela- tive to B2B relationships: value proposition, risk preference, and spending pressures. First, the value proposition for B2B exchanges is defined by best value (Frazier et al. 2009), manifested by hyperrational buying behavior (Johnston and Bonoma 1981). In contrast, B2G procurement is a mixture of value and socioeconomic goals. ...
This article uses multimethod approaches to develop a conceptual foundation for and empirical evidence of the performance implications of business-to-government (B2G) relationships. In-depth interviews reveal unique characteristics that differentiate B2G exchanges from commercial exchanges (e.g., procurement mission; regulations and oversight; scale, scope, and planning horizon) and highlight the resultant cost–benefit trade-offs for firms in this environment. Empirical longitudinal analyses of secondary data show that a firm’s government customer emphasis (firm revenue dependence on B2G relationships) exerts a positive nonlinear effect on firm value but also increases firm risk (idiosyncratic and systematic). Government customer breadth and depth are two critical customer portfolio characteristics that moderate these effects. High government customer breadth creates more costs associated with an increasing government customer emphasis, mitigating the positive nonlinear effect on firm value. However, breadth provides diversification benefits that alleviate the increase in idiosyncratic risk that comes with greater government customer emphasis. Deep B2G relationships give firms key customer domain knowledge and insights, which help counteract the increased idiosyncratic and systematic risks of government customer emphasis. The authors discuss the implications for marketing theory and practice.
... The concepts of buying centers and selling centers typically are seen as being much more applicable to and important in other product cat- egories, such as capital equipment or minor equip- ment (cf. Hutt and Speh 1984;Johnston and Bonoma 1981;Spekman and Johnston 1986). The personal selling and salesforce management literatures have concentrated more on products and services requiring significant "creative selling" efforts, so to speak. ...
A new form of relational exchange, commonly referred to as the “just-in-time” (JIT) exchange relationship, has been adopted and implemented by many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers of component parts-materials during the past several years. Though the “exchange relationship” is at the core of the marketing discipline, JIT exchanges have received little attention in the marketing literature. The authors attempt to expand understanding of (1) how JIT exchanges compare with other forms of exchange between suppliers of component parts-materials and OEMs, (2) what conditions are most conducive to the initiation of JIT exchanges, and (3) what key factors are likely to influence the success or failure of initiated JIT exchanges.
... In relation to organizational buying decisions, importance is an im- plicit concept in many previous typologies. More- over, empirical evidence indicates that purchase im- portance influences many aspects of the decision process, such as the size and structure of the buying center ( Johnston and Bonoma 1981;Moriarty and Bateson 1982) and the perceived influence of the de- cision participants (McQuiston 1989). Purchase im- portance is the buyer's perception of the significance of the buying decision in terms of the size of the pur- chase and/or the potential impact of the purchase on the functioning of the firm. ...
The author reports the development of a classification scheme of buying patterns and situations. Unlike previous conceptual schemes, it consists of six prototypical “buying decision approaches” identified through an empirically based taxonomy development procedure. A mix of underlying buying activities distinguishes the categories: search for information, use of analysis techniques, focus on proactive issues, and reliance on control mechanisms. The use of a particular buying decision approach depends on four situational characteristics: purchase importance, task uncertainty, extensiveness of choice, and perceived buyer power. The findings reveal some patterns that are similar to previous classification schemes, but new variations allow for a conceptual extension of the literature. The resulting framework is useful to marketing managers, who can view their customer segments in terms of the categories in the taxonomy. Further, it provides a tool by which sales representatives can develop adaptive selling approaches based on a small set of buying situations and corresponding buying decision approaches.
... Virtual reality allows people to have a better understanding of things like scale, movement and flows" (Maddox, 2015). This ability to support immersive experiences between multiple stakeholders is key in B2B markets where buyer-supplier engagement often occurs within and across groups and networks of stakeholders (Anderson, Håkansson, & Johanson, 1994;Johnston & Bonoma, 1981). ...
The opportunities virtual reality provides for B2B marketing are increasingly recognized by the trade press in discussions of interesting examples from early adopters like GE, Siemens and Airbus. However, while there is growing recognition of its promise and potential, the specific impact of virtual reality on B2B marketing remains an unexplored research area. This paper provides an early theoretical consideration of the topic by developing a framework and offering propositions that describe the impact of virtual reality on B2B buyer perceptions of value-in-use during the post-purchase stage of the buyer's purchase journey. The paper also considers the moderating impact of several aspects of buyer-supplier relationships, including knowledge complexity, social complexity and task complexity, on virtual reality's contribution to value-in-use perceptions. The discussion provides B2B marketing scholars with several directions for future research and makes several recommendations for B2B marketers interested in leveraging the opportunities presented by virtual reality.
... Salespeople examined in the current study were required to call on their active accounts regularly. Therefore, for this study, the go/no-go decision is dichotomous because customers require continuous investments of salesperson time and attention (Marshall et al. 1999), as well as firm-level resources such as travel funding and possibly technical sales support (Hutt et al. 1985;Johnston and Bonoma 1981). Continuous time investments in a sales opportunity are not merely more expensive on the front end, but they are also less lucrative on the back end because of the time value of money. ...
Salesforce compensation theory assumes that given proper design of the incentive structure, salespeople will rationally allocate effort to maximize returns to their firm and themselves. However, faced with large sunk investments over long selling cycles, salespeople continue to commit resources to opportunities with little or no chance of being won, to the exclusion of viable leads. This article theoretically explores and empirically tests this over-investment effect under four potentially moderating conditions using a large multinational corporation’s industrial salesforce. The findings from this field study indicate that escalation of commitment is more likely to occur in non-strategic accounts and accounts not involving channel partners. In addition, salespeople with lower ability demonstrate greater escalation of commitment. The study indicates that without targeted managerial intervention, salespeople will over-invest precious selling resources in unprofitable, unwinnable opportunities.
... The selling activities fall into three categories. The organizational buying is influenced through the coalition of powerful stakeholders (See discussion on buying center in Johnston and Bonoma (1981)). Therefore, the first category of selling activities focus on identifying, contacting, and developing key stakeholder relationships by supporting their goal achievement. ...
Selling new innovative services and solutions demands a proactive and customer value-focused sales approach, and new capabilities and resources to support the approach. Firms find the transformation challenging and lack tools to succeed. In this chapter, I discuss the internal and external challenges of implementing value-based solution selling, illustrate the involved processes and their connections, and explicate the key activities of the value-based solution selling process. This chapter embeds the sales transformation into a broader change of business logic, analyzes the value-based solution selling from the value proposition communication and differentiation method, and provides a managerially relevant framework to guide the implementation.
... Research has consistently suggested that a congruence of buyer needs and sales firm offerings is critical for personal selling and sales management success (T€ ollner, Blut, and Holzm€ uller 2011;Bradford et al. 2010;Hansen et al. 2011). Some research exemplars suggest that buying center needs are distinct and that buying center composition changes according to the purchasing situation (Johnston and Bonoma 1981;T€ ollner, Blut, and Holzm€ uller 2011). Additional research suggests that selling teams or embedded teams may be required to cater to different purchasing needs (Spekman and Johnston 1986;Moon and Armstrong 1994;Bradford et al. 2010). ...
The business-to-business selling function has changed over the years, with more informed and demanding buyers, prompting firms to move toward a more consultative, solution-selling approach. While these changes have been the focus of extensive research in the personal selling and sales management domain, the customer side of the interaction dyad requires more examination. Even within the context of the customer side, insufficient attention has been paid to the purchasing function in business-to-business (B2B) selling research. Given the increased importance in customer organizations of the purchasing function, this article presents a literature review that highlights the purchasing function's personal selling and sales management needs and argues that, as the purchasing function becomes more important and its needs evolve, personal selling and sales strategies also need to evolve. The article highlights areas for future research in this domain.
... On the one hand, according to Anderson et al. (2006) three or four offering's features concentrate the attention of industrial customers. On the other hand, the buying center is composed by multiple stakeholders with different interests, generally involving more than three executives (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981;McWilliams, Naumann, & Scott, 1992) as influencers and decision maker. Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) suggests that separating the benefits increase the utility (value) perceived by customers. ...
While it is well known that price is the only marketing mix variable that generates revenue, it is also true that pricing strategies are diverse in complexity and formulations. Over 40 years ago, legislation was approved to require the use of unit pricing to facilitate consumer decision making. Among other research, Monroe and LaPlaca (1972), examined this new phenomenon; and after some controversy, the benefits of unit pricing were confirmed by the general scholarly community. Will those benefits sustain in B2B settings? As a result of the findings from this research, we propose the fusion of unit and value-based pricing as a new approach. We call it unit value-based pricing. The main difference with classical unit pricing is the perspective shift from cost to the customer perceived value. Unit value-based pricing helps the supplier to capture a fair share of the value created and makes more robust and efficient the purchasing procedures of industrial customers. After reviewing the impact of the Monroe and LaPlaca (1972) article on pricing research, we discuss the implications of unit-value based pricing, offer nine propositions for further research, and shed some light on the proposed benefits through a case study.
... Our review also highlights the industrial customer's multi-actor nature, that is, its composition of a collection of connected actors (stakeholders)-the buying center members-who may each engage with a supplier in unique ways (e.g. via different engagement-platforms). Buying center actors may include: Initiator (initially articulates the purchase need), gatekeeper (controls information flow), influencer (exerts purchase-related influence), decision-maker (authorizes the purchase decision), buyer (makes the purchase), and user (purchase end-user; Johnston & Bonoma, 1981). Our subsequent analyses consider BCE's unique, aggregate actor nature, reflecting individuals' differing engagement motivations, intensities and/or valences in service ecosystem-based interactions. ...
While the service-dominant logic-informed nature of customer engagement in social media has been recognized in business-to-consumer contexts, little is known regarding this theoretical interface in business-to-business (B2B) settings. Insight into business customer engagement (BCE), as expressed through social media and/or other B2B engagement-platforms (e.g. trade shows) and its S-D logic-based antecedents and consequences thus remains limited. Based on the observed gap, this paper integrates the theoretical entities of BCE, B2B social media engagement-platforms, and S-D logic and through its analyses, uncovers the related importance of the resource-based view (RBV) in affecting this association. An integrative S-D logic/RBV-informed model is developed, where BCE denotes an industrial customer's investment of operant/operand resources in supplier interactions via particular B2B engagement-platforms, including social media. The model considers business customer actors and resources in driving business customer resource integration, business customer resource integration effectiveness, and business customer resource integration efficiency, which act as BCE antecedents that extend to coincide with BCE. BCE, in turn, triggers business customer cocreation and relationship productivity, which subsequently, contribute to business customer relationship quality and ultimately, supplier performance. A set of research propositions is derived from the model, which serves as a useful guide for further research. Managerial implications focused on B2B social media marketing are discussed, before we conclude with an overview of research limitations and future research directions.
... OBB research has specifically pointed to the relevance of buyers' perceptions of specific characteristics of the purchasing situation such as the complexity, novelty, importance and uncertainty of the purchase. These factors have been found to be very helpful in explaining the level of managerial involvement, the functional disciplines involved, the number of people involved, the degree of linkage between members of the buying center (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981;Lewin & Donthu, 2005;McQuiston, 1989), the buying center's brand sensitivity (Brown, Zablah, Bellenger, & Donthu, 2012), and the vendor choice process (Hunter, Bunn, & Perreault Jr, 2006). Research has, however, also indicated that a narrow focus on variation in the complexity, novelty and uncertainty of the purchase may fail to explain important variation in buying behaviour. ...
Research on service purchasing commonly acknowledges that different types of services require different purchasing approaches. This has generated a plethora of service classifications that focus on different characteristics inherent to the service. Recently, the use to which a service is put in an organization and the organizational context have been argued to influence the way in which the service is purchased, thereby shifting attention away from inherent service characteristics. The current paper extends this line of research by focusing on the buyer's understanding of the service and its impact on the supplier selection process. Based on an interpretive, phenomenographic analysis of 32 interviews with buyers of pension and insurance advice services (PIAS) in Sweden, the current study identifies four fundamentally different ways of understanding these services and shows how different conceptions of a service give rise to different approaches to selecting suppliers and different criteria for evaluating them.
... The second group of studies focuses on the main structural elements of the procurement organisation, including many relevant aspects. A large debate has been carried out on the decision about the level of centralisation (i.e. the degree to which authority, responsibility, and power are concentrated within an organisation or buying unit; Johnston and Bonoma, 1981). In the procurement field, centralisation means that procurement activities are consolidated in one organisational unit versus decentralized meaning to have them dispersed in multiple units. ...
... While in consumer markets, the most complex setup for decisionmaking is a household, in B2B markets multiple functions and persons are involved in decisionmaking. The buying center concept, for example, describes five different roles (decision maker, gatekeeper, influencer, user, buyer) that should be considered when analyzing organizational decision making (Johnston and Bonoma 1981). Moreover, recent empirical research shows that relationship multiplexity is an important driver of firm performance. ...
This chapter focuses on engagement in business-to-business (B2B) contexts. It analyzes a number of specific properties of business markets (e.g. the derived character of demand or formalization/rationality of exchange) and discusses their implications for the phenomenon of customer engagement. Furthermore, the authors argue that the concept of customer engagement should be extended to partner engagement in order to reflect the complexity and network character of value chains in business markets. Finally, the authors develop a typology of partner engagement behaviors in business markets and discuss differences with respect to the level of engagement (organizational vs. individual), underlying relational factors as well as special cases. Based on the analysis, the authors derive specific implications for B2B managers and provide avenues for future research in the domain of partner engagement.
... Another well-established difference concentrates on buyer-seller relationships, which are more predominant in a B2B context than B2C (Hâkansson & Snehota, 1995). In addition, the buying decision process has been characterized as unique in B2B marketing, including the presence of a buying center or decision making unit (Johnston & Bonoma, 1981). Other researchers claim that the divergence in business and consumer marketing isn't significant and doesn't deserve specific attention when developing marketing concepts (e.g., Coviello & Brodie, 2001). ...
The economic power of B2B transactions hasn't been reflected in the amount of published research in marketing journals, and the relevance for practitioners of the studies issued has been questioned during the last 20. years. How can we bring academicians and practitioners together? After studying the history of B2B marketing, building on configuration theory, and prospecting the future challenges for marketers, the authors argue that the research efforts should be focused on six major areas of inquiry: Innovation, Customer Journey and Relationship Value, Data Analytics, Harnessing Technology, Marketing/Finance Interface and Revenue Growth, and Industry Context or Ecosystem. Specifically, they propose 20 theoretical sub-categories that are compelling for academicians and relevant for B2B marketers. The research conclusions and propositions were established by an expert panel through an exhaustive ranking-type Delphi method and refined using a coding scheme from grounded theory. The authors discuss the implications for theory development and managerial interest.
Reacquiring a lost customer is often easier, faster, and less expensive than acquiring a new customer. Thus, reacquisition activities have become important fundamental aspects of selling. Improving our understanding of the customer reacquisition efforts of business-to-business salespeople is the primary objective of this study. When customers leave, they leave behind a network of personal connections with the supplier. This research examines how assessments of these connections by salespeople relate to salesperson effort and reacquisition success. We distinguish between buying center members who support a salesperson (i.e., advocates) and those who work against the salesperson (i.e., adversaries). A conceptual model is developed and results show that advocates in a customer organization enhance both sales effort and the level of reacquisition while adversaries increase salesperson perceptions of reacquisition difficulty.
The aim of this paper is to take a case study of the Fincons Group and examine the in depth activity of the Inside Sales Department. The study presents Fincons Group, which is an IT Consulting Company. Its offices are based in Italy, Switzerland, and England. They are organized into Business Units and are offering concerns to all the different stages of IT applications as well as complex innovation programs. It explains the activities of the Inside Sales Department, specifically the Inside Sales. In detail, Marketing Analysis and Strategy, Marketing Management, and Marketing Research and Metrics have been considered useful to present to the management the guideline for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of customer relationship management programs. Thus, its aim is to optimize the sales process. This study also deals with CRM Salesforce, which is the IT tool used for customer relationship management. In this case, it is possible to analyse the CRM by going over its list of information. Thus, the aim is to give the guideline to quantify the value of customer relationships. In conclusion, the paper highlights the idea of “Holistic CRM”. Specifically, it emphasizes the need for a cross-functional, process-oriented, and calculated approach that positions CRM at a strategic level where business should take precedence over technology.
Organizational buyers are increasingly employing competitive tenders with objective buying criteria to mitigate the influence of personal relationships with suppliers and reduce the overall cost of buying. This paper investigates the role of salespeople’s relationships with buyers (i.e., purchasing managers) and how they affect supplier selection in such contexts. Drawing on data from 428 tenders across different buying organizations, this study shows that the quality of the salesperson’s relationship with the buyer influences the buyer’s evaluation of the tender proposal, which, in turn, affects supplier selection. Thus, the results support an indirect effect of salesperson relationship on supplier selection even in a tender context. In addition, the results indicate that the effect of a salesperson’s relationship on buyer’s proposal evaluation is contingent on the comprehensibility of suppliers’ proposals and buyer’s product knowledge. These results have significant theoretical and managerial implications for both buyers and suppliers in business-to-business (B2B) tender contexts.
High-technology markets represent unique problems for organizational buyers and, in turn, for their existing and potential vendors. These problems are due to high levels of uncertainty and the presence of switching costs tied to existing technologies or vendors. The authors focus on two aspects of buyer decision making in such markets: (1) whether buyers include new vendors at the consideration stage of the process and (2) whether they switch to new vendors at the choice stage. Using survey data from organizational buyers’ purchases of computer workstation equipment, the authors present a joint test of the antecedent conditions that influence the two processes. Based on a sequential logit model, they show that individual antecedents have different effects on consideration and switching behavior. The authors then discuss the implications of their study for the literatures on high-technology markets and organizational buyer behavior.
In mature industrial markets, segmenting customers on size, industry, or product benefits alone is rarely sufficient. Customer behavior in terms of tradeoffs between price and service is an important additional criterion. The authors offer a framework for such buying-behavior-oriented microsegmentation of industrial customers. They apply the framework to segment the national accounts of a large industrial company and show how the results of a segmentation study can be used to redirect the firm's resources and customer segments.
The greening of corporate America has added a new and different type of criterion to some organizational buying decisions—social responsibility. Scholars have given little attention to such noneconomic buying criteria. On the basis of a study of 35 buying processes in ten organizations and an in-depth examination of 21 of those processes, the author addresses how and why socially responsible buying comes about in organizations. The findings suggest that two factors have been key to the success of socially responsible buying initiatives. One factor is the presence of a skillful policy entrepreneur. Policy entrepreneurs are found to have many of the same characteristics as business entrepreneurs, but invest their resources in instituting new organizational policies. Their zeal for socially responsible buying is rooted in a commitment based on a complex and often difficult process of moral reasoning. The second factor influencing the success of socially responsible buying is the organizational context within which policy entrepreneurs operate. The author differentiates organizational contexts on the basis of whether the socially responsible buying is part of a deliberate corporate strategy and further classifies them through a framework and identifies themes observed across the contexts. Guidance is offered for vendors marketing socially responsible products and services.
The authors focus on emergent buying center networks in firms that recently have purchased an expensive, complex, technological product. The authors examine how a person's information control and influence vary within such networks. The purpose of this study is to assess the relative contribution of information control, individual attributes, and organization structure variables on influence. The authors find that factors related to the person are the most important in explaining a buying center member's influence for this type of purchasing decision. Although less important, the variables of information control, decentralization, and formalization also affect influence. Overall, the authors find strong empirical support for their model.
A new model of the organizational buying process is presented. The ontological framework of the model is based on the assumption that organizational buying behavior is essentially a form of work behavior. The model is informed by expectancy theory and emphasizes the role of reward and measurement systems in motivating purchasing process participants. It is suggested that this approach can serve as the foundation of a research program that may eventually lead to a unified theory of the organizational dyad.
Purpose
This paper aims to empirically examine the proposed framework that incorporates multiple business relational ties as components in a composite that can provide strength to relationships. Strength is conceptualized as tensile strength or an ability to withstand stress without permanent deformation of the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses dyadic survey data collected by mail survey from the organizational buyers and suppliers. Analysis is through moderated multiple regression.
Findings
Results indicate that stressors can disrupt individual components of relationships. However, the overall relationship outcome of behavioral loyalty remains intact with tensile strength coming from other components of the relationship.
Originality/value
This research introduces the concept of tensile strength from the material sciences as relevant to dyadic business relationship strength. The outcomes indicate that looking at multiple components of the business relationship provides greater insight into the tensile strength of business relationships.
This article approaches the industrial buyer's vendor selection decision process as one of problem solving in the face of probabilistic outcomes, i.e., risk. The findings of the national experiment reported here suggest that methods of handling risk in vendor selection decisions are mediated by loyalty to current vendors and by the way the industrial buyer perceives or frames the decision problem.
This paper presents an operational method for estimating quantitatively market acceptance of new industrial products, including estimates of variations in likely market response as a function of price, product attributes, and environmental factors. Results from two studies on solar energy systems demonstrate excellent reliability and validity under field conditions.
The organizational buying system concept is introduced as an organizing framework for exploring the patterned, repeated interactions that characterize ongoing purchasing processes. Applying a structural perspective to the study of influence, the authors assert that organizational actors derive influence from the position they occupy within the buying system. An analysis of a 171-member organizational network demonstrates that individual influence in organizational buying is derived from properties of both the formal and the informal structures.
To successfully market their products, industrial vendors must determine who participates in an organizational purchase decision and what their influence is. Previous research has shown that participation and influence can vary across products and purchase situations. Though industrial marketing researchers would agree that there are different types of purchase situations, they would disagree on a taxonomy for describing them. The author uses past research as a point of departure and proposes a structural equations model that suggests the purchase situation attributes of novelty, complexity, and importance are causal determinants of participation and influence in an industrial purchase decision. The results indicate that these constructs, especially novelty and importance, provide a plausible typology for describing participation and influence in industrial purchase situations.
Strategic interdependencies exist between marketing and other functional areas in the industrial firm. The concept of the marketing strategy center is offered as an organizing framework for exploring the industrial marketer's interdisciplinary role in the development and implementation of marketing strategy. Parallels between organizational buying behavior research and studies of executive decision-making processes are explored. Key research and managerial implications are highlighted.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying knowledge structure and evolution of industrial-buying research published between 1965 and 2015.
Design/methodology/approach
Bibliometric analysis is performed on 357 relevant papers (using principal component analysis and natural language processing, using VantagePoint® tools, used to generate bubble maps, auto-correlation maps and Aduna cluster maps), demonstrating how various factors involved in industrial buying have evolved, their degree of correlation with each other and the interrelationships of multiple factors concerning their co-occurrences.
Findings
The systematic mapping of industrial-buying research would illustrate the development of the significant factors in industrial-buying research. This paper provides both a global perspective on the leading countries and journals in the field and a robust roadmap for further investigation in this field.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is limited to the data considered for analysis and may, therefore, overlook or underestimate some work that has not been captured while filtering databases related to industrial buying.
Practical implications
This paper facilitates near-future projection and trend analysis in industrial-buying research.
Originality/value
The methodology used is unique to the field of business-to-business marketing.
The authors examine the upstream impact of a firm’s customer-centric organizational structure on its supplier, including both positive effects of greater revenue and negative effects of demanding services that raise the supplier’s costs. These countervailing effects on supplier profit are moderated by characteristics of the firm’s buying center and the firm–supplier relationship, in accordance with the value capture literature. Study 1 examines the proposed firm-level financial effects of the dual processes, using surveys of industrial firms matched with secondary data from their supplier. Study 2 assesses the supplier-level net impact of the dual processes, using publicly available data to shed light on the upstream financial impact of firms’ customer-centric structures across a broad sample of Fortune 500 suppliers. Findings highlight the need for a supplier to proactively assess the structure of each buyer-firm, as a supplier can take steps to mitigate cost effects and enhance revenue effects.
Purpose
The article aims to further understanding of purchasing practices in post-outsourcing buyer–supplier relationships, and it provides a holistic approach and onceptualizations with which to balance the perspectives of purchasing as an intra-firm operational function and as a strategic activity embedded in relationship and network management.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on an inductive-oriented case study. The data comprised 61 thematic interviews conducted at 17 buyer companies (electricity distribution companies), 11 service supplier companies and six third-party organizations. The case features a setting in which a growing number of electricity distribution companies have outsourced operational functions regarding network construction, maintenance and fault repair and purchased these services from service suppliers representing a developing service market.
Findings
The study explicates the role of purchasing as an element with the most impact on post-outsourcing buyer–supplier relationship outcomes and development. The performance of the buyer–supplier relationship either accelerates or inhibits the new service supplier’s entry to the field and motivates or demotivates the electricity distribution companies to outsource their activities. This mechanism links to the respective development of supplier markets and buyer industry transformation.
Originality/value
The focal study provides a holistic approach and conceptualizations with which to balance the perspectives of purchasing as an intra-firm operational function and as a strategic activity embedded in relationship and network management. In particular, the study provides conceptual development on purchasing practices in post-outsourcing relationships and concrete managerial implications for dealing with such circumstances. The focal study includes case notes that facilitate using the study for teaching purposes.
Ausgangspunkt von Marketingentscheidungen ist ein grundlegendes Verständnis darüber, wie Nachfrager eine Kaufentscheidung treffen und wie das Konsumverhalten in der weiteren Sicht beeinflusst wird. Insbesondere im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung hat sich das Nachfragerverhalten gewandelt und es können neue Determinanten identifiziert werden. Erklärungsansätze zum Kaufentscheidungsverhalten sowie zum veränderten Nachfragerverhalten im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung stehen im Mittelpunkt des zweiten Kapitels. Dabei wird zunächst auf Erklärungsansätze des Kaufverhaltens von Endverbrauchern eingegangen. Auch Einflussgrößen des Kaufverhaltens sowie ihre Messung werden umfassend erörtert. Totalmodelle, worunter Struktur- und Prozessmodelle zu verstehen sind, werden vorgestellt. Die Customer Journey, als Ausprägung eines Prozessmodells, wird ausführlich erläutert und mit dem klassischen Trichtermodell ins Verhältnis gesetzt. Des Weiteren werden in diesem Zusammenhang die Customer Experience sowie die damit verbundenen (Kunden-)kontaktpunkte dargestellt. Ferner wird auf Partialmodelle zur Erklärung des Entscheidungsverhaltens von Nachfragern eingegangen. Neben Endverbrauchern treten Unternehmen als Nachfrager auf Märkten auf. Hierfür wurden in der Marketingforschung eigene Kaufverhaltensansätze entwickelt, die ebenfalls in diesem Kapitel vorgestellt werden.
Purpose
Emotions in business-to-business (B2B) interactions are relatively unexplored when compared with business-to customer (B2C) industry wherein sufficient evidence implicating the role of emotions in decision-making is available. This study aims to explore the role of emotions in B2B decision-making, and a customer experience model is suggested for the B2B industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative research methodology using structured and semi-structured interviews along with a repertory grid technique was followed during the study. Purposive sampling was done to identify respondents who were involved in the vendor choice process either as a buyer or a seller in their respective organizations.
Findings
Exploratory research conducted during this study supports the presence of five dimensions of customer experience – sensory, emotional, relational, behavioural and intellectual – in a B2B context. The study further indicates that the experiential value for B2B decision-making is derived from functional, symbolic, emotional and cost values which are assessed by the buyer during their interaction with the product or the service ecosystem and has an impact on the purchase intentions of an industrial buyer.
Originality/value
This paper identifies the role of specific customer experience dimensions in a B2B environment and proposes the role and mechanism of emotional factors affecting the decision-making process in B2B exchange.
Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) is under significant pressure to find levers to further increase its contribution to corporate goals. In order to improve performance in line with expectations, Purchasing and Supply Organizations (PSOs) have to evolve continuously. To help address this challenge, a comprehensive contingency framework of PSO structures is presented. The framework is based on existing literature on PSO contingency factors as well as analysis of two case companies. The findings highlight the importance of taking a contingency perspective for understanding the PSO and combining a detailed view of macro-level structural dimensions with micro-level characteristics. These macro-level dimensions comprise category, business unit, geography and activity. The micro-level characteristics comprise centralization, formalization, specialization, participation and standardization. From a theoretical perspective, the contingency framework opens up insights that can be leveraged in future studies in the fields of hybrid PSOs, global sourcing organizations, and International Purchasing Offices (IPOs). From a practical standpoint, an assessment of external and internal contingencies and their relation to specific structural dimensions and characteristics provides the opportunity for more consciously evolving the PSO to continue to improve PSM's contribution.
The industrial buying function is substantially more complex than it initially appears. It involves many people at all levels in a firm, often with vastly different views; it often is a protracted activity lasting many months; and it may even be influenced by factors that are largely unrelated to the quality and price of the product being sold. Hence, studies that tell about the activities of a purchasing agent or buyer tell only a small part of the story. The most useful information to marketing management comes from studies that focus on functions rather than individuals.
Research conducted in three industrial markets indicates that word-of-mouth communication within firms is an important influence in the later stages of the adoption process. Opinion leaders were found to be more heavily exposed to impersonal sources of information than other buying influentials in the firm.
On the basis of field interviews and questionnaires from a sample of 142 purchasing agents in different firms, the author finds that the work behavior of the agents is strongly influenced by "lateral" negotiations. The relationship between the purchasing department and other departments in the organization, particularly engineering and scheduling, cannot be understood in terms of traditional, "vertical" supervisor-subordinate or line-staff concepts. Instead, the typical work-flow relationship involves much more than the giving of advice or the application of hierarchical authority. The ambitious purchasing agent skillfully uses formal and informal and informal techniques in order to influence the terms of the requisitions that he receives. Thus he introduces a two-way work flow and in this way raises his own status.
This paper discusses a number of complex and currently unresolved conceptual issues arising in research on innovation in complex organizations. In an effort to link the issues they are approached through an exploration of the factors responsible for instability in empirical findings. Four separate sources of instability are defined and their theoretical and methodological implications are treated at some length. The analysis of the relative adoptability of innovations and the innovativeness of organizations are found to be related by mirror-image theoretical symmetry. The four sources of instability are seen to have the same implications for the development of a theory of adoptability. Seven prescriptions for research on innovation are suggested. Although this study suggests how one might arrive at a general theory of innovation, it does not actually construct any specific theory.
Reports on an empirical study of the decision to purchase computers in a single firm. States it is a competitive bidding situation with several suppliers attempting to win a contract that eventually reached £3.5 million pounds. Illustrates how the politics of the firm can influence significant purchase decisions and, in particular, how gatekeepers within the firm's buying centre can structure the outcome of purchase decision in line with their position in the political process. Bases the study on a large organisation in England, in the period 1957–1968, with regard to four computer purchase decisions. Concludes that it is clear that the computer suppliers had differential access to the firm's power structure and it was also evident they had differential knowledge of its operation.
Empirical support is needed for the wealth of existing conceptual models describing organizational buying processes. This study focuses on measuring and understanding the relative influence of different buying center components in the context of convention site selection by a sample of North American associations. Mail questionnaires were sent to members of each major buying center component of 506 associations located in the United States and Canada. Responses were received from 386 permanent association executives, 650 elected officers of associations, and 1870 association members. The study found that important differences existed in the influence of different buying center components, with elected officers generally having the most influence and members the least. This general finding was qualified, however, by two factors. First, dominance in the decision process was found not to be a generalized phenomenon. Rather, it varied with specific subdecisions. Second, the nature of influence structure was found to vary significantly across associations having different objectives, structures, and sizes.
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Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing Group Dynamics: The Psychology of Small Group BehaviorMeasuring Influence in Organizational Purchase Decisions
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