Purchasing involvement in product development:: a framework

Both within academia and practice, the involvement of purchasing and suppliers in product development has attracted considerable attention during the last decade. However, most research is limited to the context of single development projects, focusing on possible short-term contributions such as the reduction of development lead-time. Long-term issues like technological alignment between supplier and manufacturer are relatively ignored. Therefore, this article seeks to develop a coherent framework of specific activities across a number of different management areas within purchasing involvement in product development. Such a framework may help to implement, improve and audit this involvement.     

Customer Involvement in Product Development: An Industrial Network Perspective

Purpose: In business markets, working with customers and users has become increasingly important to get knowledge about customer needs and to develop new products. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to develop a framework for analyzing customer involvement in product development in a business market context, and (2) to apply this framework to a particular company to describe and analyze how it practices customer involvement.

Methodology/approach: The article takes its main theoretical starting point in the industrial network approach, but also uses other literature from the innovation and product development field. The empirical study applies a qualitative case study approach and focuses on one company in the truck business.

Findings: The suggested framework deals with four key aspects of customer involvement: Why, when, how, and who. The observed pattern of the truck manufacturer shows how dealers, hauliers, and truck drivers are all part of the overall understanding of the customer. These actors are involved for different, typically very clear, purposes at different points in time through surveys, product clinics, and field testing. The pattern, referred to as mixed facilitative, is not one of close collaboration with individual customers, but one of broad involvement of several customers through business intelligence and direct involvement.

Research implications: First, the article provides researchers with a framework and method for studying customer involvement in product development. Second, the case study provides an illustrative example of the customer involvement pattern pursued by a leading company in a major industry. This enhances the understanding of the focal phenomenon, leads to managerial implications, and gives ideas for future research.

Practical implications: There are several managerial implications related to the why, when, how, and who questions. For example, it is pointed out that managers should consider involving customers more extensively than what seems to be common today—for example, by using customers as codevelopers, working with them throughout the entire development process (i.e., not only early and late), and including different types of users (with different requirements and wishes).

Originality/value/contribution of the article: The contribution lies in the development of a framework centered on the four key questions of customer involvement in

product development and using this framework for observing a pattern, and finding explanations and relating this pattern to how other firms are doing.     

Consumer Purchasing in Foreign Countries: A Perceived Risk Perspective

Increases in tourism and international business mean more non-nationals will be consuming products in foreign countries. No study has yet examined their purchasing behaviour using a perceived risk framework. This article reports the results of an exploratory study of national and non-national consumers who rated loss types and risk relievers for 24 products. In general non-nationals perceived more risk in product purchase and considerably more psychosocial loss than nationals. They also rated all risk relievers as significantly more useful than nationals. For both groups brand loyalty was the most useful risk reliever while celebrity endorsement was the least useful.     

Market Model-Based Channel Selection in B2B E-Commerce: Exploring a Buyer's Adoption Decisions

Companies that seek to exploit the cost advantages of business-to-business (B2B) e-Commerce face a variety of strategic options. By analyzing the demand and cost functions for sellers, intermediaries, and buyers, this research develops an economic framework that clarifies the relative advantages of four common B2B e-Commerce channels: private exchange, web-based procurement, public aggregation, and public exchange. This research focuses on addressing two important questions: (1) How does a buyer select a suitable B2B e-Commerce channel (or an e-Marketplace structure) given a variety of market conditions, different levels of product substitution, and a range of purchasing patterns? (2) How does a buyer successfully manage a B2B e-Commerce channel for gaining the highest transaction-level buyer surplus? The analytic and numeric results of our study show that a company's product offerings, the market conditions it faces, and the purchase patterns it implements are all important determinants in the selection of B2B e-Commerce setting. For custom products, private networks (such as the private exchange or web-based procurement models) are more attractive than the public aggregation or exchange models. However, taking market conditions and purchasing behavior into consideration, the web-based procurement model is more suitable for spot purchasing, while the public exchange model is more suitable for systematic purchasing and fragmented markets. On the other hand, the aggregation model is preferable in concentrated markets while the exchange model is more suitable in fragmented markets. These results provide important implications for industrial development of B2B e-Commerce.     

基于信任的移动社交电子商务购买意愿影响因素

近年来,越来越多的个体、商家加入移动社交网络平台开展电子商务活动,对网络零售产生了重要影响。但由于缺乏监管和行业规范的引导,消费者感知风险存在,影响消费者交易行为,且理论研究较少,也不能为此类电子商务模式的发展提供理论指导。信任是电子商务活动的基础,信任对消费者购买意愿产生直接影响,平台可用性、消费者内在特征和行为以及商家会直接或间接影响非移动社交电子商务模式消费者的购买意愿。而在移动社交电子商务中,由于其模式的独特性,以往影响消费者信任的因素已难以有效反映移动社交电子商务消费者的购买意愿。此外,商家通过社群与若干消费者建立不同程度的连接,需要研究连接中强弱关系对消费者购买意愿的影响程度。因此,基于移动社交电子商务的特点假设影响消费者信任和购买意愿的因素,即除系统质量、信息质量、产品质量、服务质量四个影响非移动社交电子商务消费者信任的因素外,还包括社群关系和网购认知这两个影响移动社交电子商务消费者信任的新因素,接下来假设上述因素对消费者感知信任和感知风险两个中介变量存在影响,并进一步影响消费者购买意愿,继而再通过构建结构方程模型进行实证分析。实证结果显示,系统质量、信息质量、产品质量、服务质量均不同程度正向影响消费者感知信任,负向影响感知风险,而社群强弱关系对购买意愿的影响与弱关系理论结论相反,网购认知对增强消费者感知信任作用明显,消除消费者感知风险是增强消费者信任的重要途径。     

Innovation sourcing excellence: Three purchasing capabilities for success

Innovation sourcing has become more critical across many industries. As global value chains have become more fragmented, change and opportunity comes from all sides. As a result, companies need to excel at capturing innovation opportunities with existing and potential supply chain members. This article describes a simple framework with three essential innovation sourcing capabilities needed to excel in purchasing: (1) Purchasing needs to explore unmet needs and anticipate future competitive advantages by working closely with other functions and clients; (2) it needs to explore external opportunities beyond first-tier suppliers; and (3) it needs to involve suppliers in innovation projects that consistently deliver results over time. Our framework has been developed based on a combined qualitative and quantitative research methodology that takes into account practices and results at the purchasing and company levels. The framework will help C-level managers and purchasing teams benchmark their progress in innovation sourcing and understand what steps need to be taken to achieve excellence.     

Product Involvement and the Relative Importance of Health Endorsements

Product involvement is a fundamental part of the buyer decision processes, during supermarket visits, as individuals respond differently to stimuli under differing involvement conditions. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of nutritional endorsements in consumers’ food purchasing decisions, when evaluated across high and low involvement products. Although past research in this area does exist, a major limitation is that nutritional endorsements have been studied only for their direct effect as a single, isolated product cue on product perception—rather than its importance relative to other product cues, such as price and product branding. This study overcomes this limitation through a conjoint analysis involving a sample of supermarket consumers. The findings suggest that a health endorsement plays a smaller role in influencing consumer decision-making relative to brand or price, but it is stronger for the higher involvement product. These findings provide nutritional foundations and product managers with quantifiable evidence of nutritional programs’ influence in consumer decision-making, justifying the relevance of such endorsements and giving nutritional foundations specific leads for adaptions in their marketing and educational efforts.     

THE PURCHASING‐LOGISTICS INTERFACE: A “SCOPE OF RESPONSIBILITY” TAXONOMY

To date, integration research has paid little attention to defining and exploring the interface between purchasing and logistics. This research seeks to catalog the set of joint activities that define this interface, and to analyze the way in which this interface is structured, in terms of how companies assign collective responsibility across the activity set. A cluster analysis of a set of 15 boundary‐spanning activities reveals a preliminary taxonomy of three purchasing‐logistics interface structures: (a) Purchasing‐Dominant; (b) Segregated; and (c) Logistics‐Dominant. The analysis also reveals limited evidence that the choice of purchasing‐logistic interface structure has an influence on supply base performance. In addition, the choice of purchasing‐logistics interface structure appears to be influenced by firm size.     

Getting Innovations Out of the Supplier Networks

Current research on purchasing is very much characterized by an interest in relationships. The earlier emphasis (within research as well as among practitioners) on the independence of the buying company-on handling suppliers at arm's length-has gradually been replaced by a more "cooperative" approach. Suppliers are generally more looked upon as external resources, which can be more efficiently used within the frame of close and long-term relationships. A corresponding interest for relationships can be found within research on technical development. There is an emphasis on the importance of relating their own development activities to the development of important counterparts and several studies point to the advantages of technical cooperation. The topic of this article thus involves two different, but in many aspects closely related problem areas, i.e., purchasing and innovation, and in order to treat them in an integrated way and to handle the connections that exist between them we use a network approach. The article is based upon two types of empirical data regarding corporate collaboration in technical development. First, material from a cross-sectional study is used to describe some general characteristics of innovative relationships. Secondly, there are two case studies which illustrate the situation where a buying company tries to combine several relationships in a development project. There are a number of opportunities and problems facing a company which tries to involve its suppliers in technical development, and this article puts forward four key issues concerning the handling of cooperative development processes: the problem of choosing partners as well as of trying to interest and engage those chosen; the problem of synchronization, in technical and other dimensions, of the actors involved in the development process; the problem of timing within and between various relationships; and, as there will always be some resistance to technical change within an industrial network structure, there must also be a mobilization of forces in favour of the development. In conclusion, a penetration of the four key issues in light of the empirical findings gives rise to some managerial implications regarding the use of network relationships in technical development.     

Understanding consumer decision making in grocery markets: does attitude-behaviour consistency vary with involvement?

The paper reports on an empirical study of purchase decision making in grocery markets. Against the central research question, 'Does decision making become more extensive with more involved product purchases?', measurements of attitude- behaviour consistency were made in three product fields which are known to engender significantly different levels of consumer involvement. The extended Fishbein model was used as the metaphor for purchase decision making and models were estimated for each product field using LISREL VII to determine the fit between product and normative beliefs, behavioural intention and actual purchasing behaviours. The results of our analysis are consistent with prior theory and support the hypothesis that the efficacy of the model in grocery markets increases as the purchase involvement increases. The implications for marketing communications within each market are discussed and the limitations of our research design are highlighted.     

Environmental purchasing: a framework for theory development

This paper examines environmental research in the supply chain management literature in order to establish a framework for current and future development of environmental purchasing theory. As the purchasing function takes on a more strategic role in forming trading partnerships with others in their supply chains, it is in a critical position to influence responses to concerns about the natural environment. Definitions of environmental supply chain management and environmental purchasing are offered and the literature is reviewed. Linkages of environmental purchasing with transaction cost analysis are established and future research is described to enhance the study of purchasing's ability to effect the natural environment.     

Critical elements of supplier development The buying-firm perspective

Supplier development is defined as any effort of a buying firm with its supplier to increase the performance and/or capabilities of the supplier and meet the buying firm's supply needs. From the buying firm's perspective, effective two-way communication, top management involvement, teams, and purchasing a relatively large percentage of the supplier's output are critical to the supplier development effort. This article (1) discusses the importance of supplier development, (2) reviews literature to identify potential critical elements of supplier development, and (3) reports the results of an analysis of survey data from US buying firms that explored these critical elements.     

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT IN THE GERMAN TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY

This article develops a conceptual framework for innovation management in logistics service providers, taking both a macro‐sectoral and a micro‐firm level perspective. Empirical data pertaining to the German transportation industry is applied in order to illustrate the current situation. In the analysis, the author distinguishes between various types of innovation: (1) product/service and process innovation, (2) market novelties, product‐range novelties and product imitations, and (3) ad hoc and planned innovation. The results indicate that despite the importance of innovation for the competitiveness of logistics service providers, innovation activities of firms in this industry and the share of innovators are at a low level compared to other industries. Only 30% of the LSP's are innovators. LSP innovation rests less on structured innovation, new product development and new product commercialization processes, instead, becomes often visible in form of technological advanced infrastructure and equipment investments. It is recommended that in the future LSP's should make more use of one or all forms of innovation activity discussed in this article.     

农产品产量与收购价格的因果关系检验

近几年,中国农产品产量一直徘徊不前,通过引入市场竞争提高农产品收购价格,刺激农民务农积极性,一直被视为解决“三农”问题的有效途径之一。基于此,对农产品产量与收购价格进行实证检验极为必要,本文使用格兰杰因果方法检验八种农产品的产量与价格之间的因果关系,结果表明,产量基本不会影响收购价格,粮食、油料、干鲜果、水产品的一阶滞后收购价格与其产量有因果关系,其余农产品的收购价格与产量的因果关系不明显。     

The chief purchasing officer: previous background and experience

This paper uses data from the 1988 and 1995 CAPS studies on purchasing’s organisational roles and responsibilities to investigate the percentage of respondents that hired their chief purchasing officer (CPO) from outside the organisation. In doing so, this research compares the attributes of internal and external CPOs in the areas of previous work experience and education, and analyses the impact of CPO origin on the supply function in terms of involvement in major corporate activities, span of control, reporting line, title Rand the use of team-based purchasing techniques. The research findings indicate that one in five companies in this study chose to hire their CPO from outside the organisation and significant differences existed between internal and external CPOs with respect to their previous work experience, number of years in the position, and age. The smaller companies tended to hire CPOs from outside more frequently than the larger companies.     

Positive and Negative Antecedents of Purchasing Eco-friendly Products: A Comparison Between Green and Non-green Consumers

This study aims to analyze what drives and prevents the purchasing of eco-friendly products across different consumer groups and develops a conceptual model embracing the positive altruistic (care for the environmental consequences of purchasing), positive ego-centric (green self-identity and moral obligation), and negative ego-centric (perceived personal inconvenience of purchasing eco-friendly products) antecedents of eco-friendly product purchase intention and behavior. We empirically validate the conceptual model for green (n = 453) and non-green (n = 473) consumers (i.e., consumers who engage in a set of pro-environmental behaviors for environmental reasons versus consumers who do not engage in these behaviors). Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis of the two groups. The results confirm the relevance of the determining factors in the model and show significant differences in eco-friendly product purchasing patterns between green and non-green consumers. Altruistic motives are more important for green than for non-green consumers. Negative ego-centric motives affect the purchase intentions of non-green consumers more than the intentions of green consumers, whereas the impact of negative motives on behavior is stronger for green than for non-green consumers. The first contribution of this paper is the development and testing of a parsimonious model of eco-friendly products purchasing that embraces both positive (altruistic and ego-centric) and negative (ego-centric) antecedents, which have been theoretically suggested in the past but have rarely been empirically tested together. The second contribution of this study is that it develops insight into the specific antecedents of eco-friendly products purchasing for green and non-green consumers to assess potential similarities and differences in eco-friendly products purchasing process, the hypothesized antecedents, their impact on eco-friendly products purchase intention and behavior, and the intention–behavior relation.     

The practice of systems marketing in the French packaging industry

The focus for this article is “product systems selling” in the packaging industry. In systems selling the seller provides, through a combination of product and service, a fulfilment of a more extended need than is the case in product selling. This paper studies companies, using multipack system suppliers where the vendor provides and installs the machinery, takes charge of maintenance and repair and offers commercial and technical information to its customers. The customer has the choice of purchasing the whole system or purchasing elements of the system. The authors propose that the purchase of the whole system may be more suited to the smaller, independent buyer who prefers to transfer responsibility for the up‐keep of the system to the supplier. Larger organisations preferring greater independence from the supplier may show a tendency to develop their own systems in‐house. The authors forecast a reduction in the total number of systems purchased in the future.     

Embedding Decision Support in E-Sourcing Tools: Quotes, A Case Study

In the everyday business world, the sourcing process of multiple goods and services usually involves complex negotiations that include discussion of product and service features. Currently, this is a high-cost process due to the scarce use of tools that streamline negotiations and assist purchasing managers' and providers' decision-making. With the advent of Internet-based technologies, it became feasible the idea of tools enabling low-cost, assisted, fluid, on-line dialogs between buyer enterprises and their providers located anywhere. This article presents Quotes, an iSOCO's commercial application that, in addition to cover the whole sequence of sourcing tasks, incorporates decision support facilities based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques that successfully address highly challenging issues in automated negotiation within a single and coherent framework.     

Bridging the intention–behavior gap among organic grocery customers: The crucial role of point‐of‐sale information

Although the interest in organic groceries has increased, actual buying behavior falls short for reasons that are mostly unknown to researchers and practitioners. This paper addresses this so‐called intention–behavior gap by investigating the impact of point‐of‐sale (POS) information on the perception of purchase barriers and behavior. While behavior and interest differ for various product categories, the organic groceries most frequently bought worldwide are differentiated on the basis of product category involvement in a pilot study. A laboratory experiment and a field experiment containing actual purchase behavior and market data revealed the possibility of enhancing organic purchases within low‐ and high‐involvement categories, while exposed to POS information. In low‐involvement product categories, POS information should reveal new product category‐specific organic features. In high‐involvement product categories, the perceived addition of value for money is crucial for purchasing organic groceries. While the effect of POS information on perceived trust and knowledge is higher for health conscious or green consumers in low‐involvement product categories, it is the converse in high‐involvement product categories.     

The Potential for Cross-Functional Contributions to B2B E-Commerce Marketing Initiatives: E-Commerce and Purchasing Professionals

ABSTRACT

While there is a great deal of information in the literature linking purchasing personnel with both supply side and distribution side transactions, there is little evidence of their involvement in setting the design and strategic objectives of their own company's e-commerce activities. Yet, these professionals have much to offer marketing personnel who may be charged with developing e-commerce strategy and Websites. This paper suggests a proactive approach that supports the benefits of such cross-disciplinary collaboration between marketing and purchasing professionals within a firm.