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This research investigates the impact of an organizational buyer’s product involvement on the customer firm’s and supplier’s financial outcomes. The results suggest that highly involved organizational buyers are willing to pay more, which benefits the supplier, but they are also perceived by the supplier as having greater expertise in negotiations, which benefits the customer. In Study 1, the authors examine the effects of buyer product involvement using a survey of organizational buyers matched with profit data from their supplier. The findings suggest that the prevailing mechanism that drives the effects of buyer product involvement is contingent upon different customer and supplier levers. Study 2 examines the theorized mechanisms via a second survey and an experiment. This research contributes to literatures on buying and negotiations by revealing the importance of considering the potential effects of a buyer’s product involvement. Suppliers can leverage a more highly involved buyer by developing strong connections with the focal product; customers should encourage their buyers to be highly involved and leverage their knowledge of the market but limit their influence within the customer firm.

Battling HIV/AIDS sets out principles and provides advice on the procurement of HIV/AIDS medicines and related supplies for programs scaling up antiretroviral therapy (ART) and associated health services. This technical guide examines the elements required to establish and ensure continuity of supplies, including medicines and other commodities. It provides extensive guidance on key topics: Quality Assurance, Selection & Quantification methods, Intellectual Property Rights, Procurement Strategies, Pricing & Financing, the Supply Cycle and Policy Issues. Specializing in procurement for HIV-related programs, Battling HIV/AIDS is a valuable resource for implementing agencies and donors dealing with HIV/AIDS related procurement, as it: focuses on resource-poor settings with little experience of treatment programs that include ART. discusses newer and more expensive drugs and tests required for ART, which because of cost or scale, have not yet become part of essential medicines policy in many countries. draws attention to some of the unpredictable factors associated with the scaling up of ART such as rapid growth in demand, the appearance of new medicines and tests, and sudden changes in markets. provides practical advice on intellectual property rights, a complex but important subject, laying out in simple terms the array of options available to national governments. provides references to valuable materials and offers links to readily available instructions and documentation.

Purpose In a context of ecological transition, this study aims to explore and understand what fosters the participation of purchasing departments and identify the drivers and difficulties encountered during the development of eco-innovation within firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a qualitative methodology that provides tools to study complex phenomena. In-depth interviews with highly knowledgeable respondents from multi-sectoral organisations enable us to explore the eco-innovation process within firms. Findings From the perspectives of resource-based theory and stakeholder theory, the study contributes to the literature by investigating firms’ internal resources and exploring further dimensions based on sustainable supply chain management and purchasing. Internal stakeholders (e.g. purchasing agents) and external stakeholders (e.g. suppliers) were identified with regard to the business eco-innovation activities of focal companies in relation to upstream stakeholders. The authors examine this complex phenomenon by raising certain intra- and inter-organisational factors, as well as more individual aspects, such as the sensitivity of the purchasing manager to ecological transition. Purchasing agents are involved in increasing the propensity of organisations to eco-innovate and, as internal stakeholders, appear to be influential in eco-innovation. Research limitations/implications Given the nascent state of eco-innovation practice and accessibility to primary data about ongoing efforts, this research could not consider all possible drivers. Practical implications This study presents an opportunity for purchasing managers to understand challenges more comprehensively to add value within the eco-innovation process. The results highlight recommendations for how best to undertake eco-innovation in upstream supply chains. Originality/value The study provides new insights into the constituent resources needed for purchasing participation during eco-innovation to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This paper is an initial attempt at research in the area.

This research examines the increasing use of online customer reviews in business-to-business (B2B) decision making. In contrast with other research on B2B decision making, we study a unique aspect wherein buyers draw on two sources: external reviews posted on online professional communities and internal reviews in the format of vendor scorecards. This method creates a conundrum: What happens when a buyer is confronted with conflicting reviews from two different sources? To shed light on this problem, we (1) interviewed 48 B2B buyers, (2) conducted a field experiment with 293 B2B buyers to examine the effect of review source, (3) conducted a second field experiment with 587 B2B buyers to examine the effect of conflicting reviews, and (4) solicited insights from 82 B2B buyers regarding the findings. The results indicate that B2B buyers are driven to resolve differences in reviews rather than to dismiss negative reviews. In addition, even positive internal reviews prompt exploration to confirm that relational bias is not present.

Purpose End users are often involved in organizational buying, but very little is known about the role that they play and how they influence purchasing decisions. This study aims to explore the factors behind end users’ attempts to influence purchasing and the strategies they use. Design/methodology/approach The research draws on the concept of purchasing task involvement, which describes the feelings of personal relevance that a buying center member has for a specific organizational purchasing decision. This concept is used to gain a deeper understanding of users’ influence in organizational purchasing and link it to sources of power and the corresponding influence strategies. The study is based on 90 in-depth interviews with buyers, drivers and sellers of heavy trucks. Findings End users’ purchasing task involvement is only marginally determined by the product’s performance or technical features. Purchasing task involvement leads to influence when there are specific power relationships between the buyer and the user and under specific circumstances. Originality/value This is the first study that links end users’ purchasing task involvement, power and influence strategies in organizational buying.

Salesperson face-to-face visits with buyer organizations are an inherently dynamic phenomenon and choreographing changes in those visits is important for a salesperson to identify and pursue sales opportunities. Drawing on social network theory and adopting a novel within-tie change perspective, we provide guidance regarding salesperson choreographing. We do so by focusing on how often a salesperson visits a buyer organization (i.e., change in visit intensity, visit intensity trend, duration of relations) and the functions a salesperson visits in a buyer organization (i.e., change in diversity of visited functions, change in visit concentration on top-management). Our model of salesperson choreographing is tested using data from 2934 salesperson–buyer organization relationships over seven consecutive sales periods. Random coefficient models illustrate the complex and nuanced interplay of various aspects of salesperson choreographing on sales with a buyer organization. The findings provide actionable guidance for salespeople to better manage the choreographing of limited visits.

In this article, we shift the usual analytical attention of the GPN framework from lead firms to suppliers in the network and from production to IT services. Our focus is on how Indian IT suppliers embed in the Netherlands along the threefold characterization of societal, territorial and network embeddedness. We argue that Indian IT suppliers attempt to display societal embeddedness when they move to The Netherlands. Our findings reveal that the endeavour by Indian IT suppliers to territorially dis-embed from the Dutch context is reinforced by their peripheral position in the network and their ability to offshore work in a bid to contain costs, in addition to the influence of client domination. Therefore, territorial embeddedness is considered to be secondary to societal embeddedness which is intertwined with client interest while neglecting the interest of other network members. Nonetheless, the inter-firm relationship is complex, given the tension between societal, territorial and network embeddedness. While preferring Indian IT suppliers because of their low pricing, Dutch clients also insist on compliance with the institutional context of the Netherlands especially when it comes to Dutch employees. This results in hybridization which means that Indian IT suppliers find ways to adhere to the institutional framework for Dutch nationals while simultaneously insulating Indian employees from the same. Consequently, a highly unfair segmented internal labour market develops, with Dutch nationals being treated more favourably as compared to Indian nationals. Nonetheless, to address these violations, Indian employees prefer individual strategies of resilience and rework rather than a collectivization response.

Companies frequently allow customers to customize products by assembling different product features or ingredients. Whereas existing research has demonstrated that customers assign greater overall value to customized products, this research focuses on the effect of customization on customers' perceptions of specific product attributes (e.g., how healthy a product is). The findings of six studies—in the field, laboratory, and online—demonstrate that customizers and noncustomizers differ in their product perceptions even if the product is objectively the same. This is because customization leads customers to perceive the product in line with their own self-image (e.g., as an unhealthy eater), a phenomenon that the authors term \"self-image-consistent product perceptions.\" Essentially, customization may influence product perceptions depending on the product and individuals' self-image; this can have downstream consequences on recommendations and social media communication. The authors test this theory for different product categories (clothing, food, and vacation packages) and attributes (fashionable, healthy, and adventurous) and demonstrate that framing customization as a simple choice or strengthening product positioning through labeling mitigates negative effects of customization.

We model the optimal choice of the contract terms of a foreign exchange risk sharing supply contract between a buyer and supplier who are located in two different countries, when the supplier quotes a wholesale price in its currency, and both parties are mean variance expected utility maximizers. We extend the model to examine alternatives to the risk sharing contract, which are the wholesale price contract without risk hedging and a wholesale price contract with transfer of risk by the buyer to an options dealer. We empirically apply the model, to two different currencies of the supplier, by assuming that the buyer is based in the U.S., while the supplier is based in one of two countries, which are Switzerland and the U.K. Our results show that the performance of the risk sharing contract provides a substantial improvement in the total expected utility of both partners to the contract, over both the wholesale price contract without risk hedging and the risk transfer contract.

The purpose of this research was directed toward an assessment of the influence of demographic and psychographic characteristics of purchasing agents on their perception of supply disruption risk in two areas, (1) a potential threat or opportunity presented by a disruption, and (2) probability of occurrence of a disruption. We drew on bounded rationality and risk perception behavioral theories to assess the relationships among perception and demographic and psychographic characteristics. The random sample was comprised of 370 middle-level purchasing managers. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed on the six study hypotheses, and four were supported. Our results show that the influence of attitude was supported at both levels of the perception and the dependent variable. The application of the theories and the findings indicate that the influence of demographic and psychographic variables on perception depends on the supply disruption situations.