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Recent research suggests that organizations cycle through a small set of possible configurations. Each buying center as an informal organization within one of these four viable types of structure will exhibit distinct configuration attributes. Describing and predicting the buying center's configuration as indicated by organizational structure are the purpose of this research.

Data collected via mail survey are used to classify organizations into hypothesized segments via K‐means cluster analysis. Buying center structure is contrasted and tested for differences using MANOVA, MDA, and post hoc t‐tests.

The extensivity or level of participation in the buying center is significantly related to the type of organization. Organizational formalization and centralization are consistently related to the formalization and centrality of the buying center.

The generalizability of the findings is limited as the sample is from a single US geographical area. Buying center participation and structure may be a function of the product. Research findings are limited to a specific service.

Awareness of the structure of the buying center is useful for marketing and sales managers. This knowledge can guide their efforts to allocate scarce sales resources at appropriate levels for business customers.

This paper closes a gap in the business‐to‐business marketing literature about antecedents to the buying center's structure.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential of Internet of Things (IoT) to affect organizational buying behavior. Potential impacts on organizational communication, buying center structure and processes and privacy and security issues are discussed.

This is a conceptual paper that advances testable propositions based on the technology overview and use of existing organizational buying behavior theory.

This paper concludes that major changes are likely as a result of the adoption of IoT. The nature of organizational communication may shift to more machine-to-machine communication and buying centers may become smaller, less hierarchical but more coordinated, with less conflict. In addition, privacy and security concerns will need to be addressed.

This is the first attempt to conceptualize the impact of adoption of IoT technologies that may help future researchers to examine the impact on a more granular level. For practitioners, it may help them prepare for the impacts of the IoT technological juggernaut.

This paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by buying centers in small and medium enterprises (SME) manufacturing companies in view of recent technological changes and the virtualization of communication.

This study uses a qualitative approach with multiple case studies to portray complex realities within the buying centers in the manufacturing SME context. The authors selected five Italian companies to portray the diverse characteristics, practices and policies of relevant stakeholders before reaching saturation with the issues explored.

The authors find that interactions among buying center members are more effective with greater collaboration and exchange (as opposed to competition and a struggle for power). Virtual/hybrid relations require greater intra-group cooperation, whereas diverse backgrounds and collaborative interactions help the flexibility and performance of the buying center. Greater use of technology produces certainty and automation, but it may also cause overload and biases that can be solved with the ability to analyze and clear responsibility for decisions.

The authors studied only five Italian companies in this study. Future research in other countries with diverse cultural and socio-economic conditions and methods would help extend this research.

The findings would improve the understanding of the challenges of adopting new purchase process technologies that would help automate routine tasks, produce useful data and support decision-making.

Unlike prior studies, this study uses an exploratory design to study the evolution of buying centers in SMEs to seek deeper insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by SMEs because of the growing use of emerging technologies.

This research is a qualitative study which aims to investigate the intricacies of organisational buying behaviour in the context of the Irish biotechnology industry. Particularly the research seeks to focus on the phenomenon of buying centres as the core decision‐making unit in an organisation and examines the functionality of such a process. The main aims of the research study is to examine key influencers, as well as to examine the decision process itself so as to fully comprehend modern organisational buyer behaviour and to discuss these issues from a practical viewpoint beneficial to both the marketing and purchasing functions.

The research process was conducted through qualitative methods, which formed a combination of focus group and key respondent interviewing. A triangular approach of data was also used to obtain quality information and to achieve a platform upon which to base accurate conclusions. A small number of organisations from industry participated in this study, which was deemed sufficient as the purpose of the study was gaining insight as opposed to proving or disproving previous theories.

It was discovered that users were key influencers in the decision process as were quality control personnel. In addition the business functions were found to be the decision makers in a highly dynamic buying centre process, which is constantly changing in terms of numbers, participation, and structure. Based on the finding of the research newer models of organisation buying behaviour were developed in addition to appropriate marketing strategies being put forward in order to better represent the realities of modern business‐to‐business marketing. This is where the real benefits of this research will be seen as marketing organisations become more efficient, buying organisations develop best practice procedures, and academics can build on this research base to further enhance marketing knowledge.

The paper examines buying centres in Irish biotechnology companies and offers recommendations for future research.

Modern procurement is being shifted from paper‐based, people‐intensive buying systems toward electronic‐based purchase procedures that rely on Internet communications and Web‐enhanced buying tools. Develops a typology of e‐commerce tools that have come to characterize cutting‐edge industrial procurement. E‐commerce aspects of purchasing are organized into communication and transaction tools that encompass both internal and external buying activities. Further, a model of the impact of e‐commerce on the structure and processes of an organization’s buying center is developed. The impact of the changing buying center on procurement outcomes in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is also analyzed. Finally, implications for business‐to‐business marketers and researchers are discussed.

Acknowledges the multiperson nature of the industrial business buying process and the development of the buying centre as the unit of analysis for business/organization buying behaviour. Addresses two main themes: conceptual issues and alternative views; and methodological dilemma. Looks at the concept of the buying centre and discusses structural properties and process considerations of the buying centre. Closes by outlining research opportunities. Concludes that present research suffers from two major flaws which inhibit development; that buying centre research tends to be descriptive, with over‐reliance on anecdotal information so that research is devoid of any theoretical foundation; and secondly many present findings have grown from research which reflects individual methodologies.

Organizational purchasing decisions can be thought of as rule‐discovery tasks in which members of the buying center develop proposals regarding the best choice of products and vendors. The uncertainty associated with buying center decisions causes the group to search for generalizations that describe the distinguishing characteristics of successful suppliers. Such generalizations identify the “rules” used to categorize future vendors; discovery of the best rules is key to accurate classification. Acknowledging the process of searching for patterns not only focuses attention on the information members use to derive patterns, but also provides a mechanism for investigating how members influence each other’s assessment of the patterns. Research into rule‐discovery tasks has the potential to enable monitoring of simulated organizational purchasing decision processes in the controlled environment of an experiment. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a set of propositions and a methodology for examining rule discovery task behavior in buying centers.

The make‐up, structure, functioning and outputs of multi‐person buying decision‐making units, commonly referred to as “buying centers,” have received substantial attention in the business marketing literature. Although most business buying decisions are non‐static in nature, theorists and researchers have been hard pressed to effectively capture the dynamic nature of business buyers’ decision‐making processes. This paper presents a synthesis of recent buying center research and reports the findings of a study which attempted to capture “process effects” in buying center structure during the buying process. Study findings affirm the widely held belief that buying centers change over time and provide interesting insights regarding how these decision‐making units change in structure and make‐up over time. The resulting implications and caveats of these findings for business marketers are discussed.

This study aims to examine buying center members’ information control (IC) in complex organizational buying contexts to uncover the effect of IC on overall procurement performance (PP) and the effects of expert power (EP), legitimate power (LP) and referent power as antecedents to IC.

The study uses confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling in AMOS version 21 to assess the hypotheses using a cross-sectional survey of 294 Sri Lankan buying center members active in complex organizational buying.

Results show that IC has positive effects on overall PP and that both EP and LP are significant antecedents to IC.

The findings challenge the conventional wisdom that sharing all information in complex organizational buying is a sure-fire way to gain success. Instead, a measured, deliberate approach is more productive and this is more likely necessary and fruitful if the buying center member has EP or LP.

Procurement managers, supply chain managers and other managers with responsibility for implementing complex organizational buying outcomes should seek to enhance IC in buying center members to promote positive procurement outcomes, but this may stifle suppliers’ attempts to influence the process. Buying center members with EP and LP are more likely to face pressure to exert IC.

This study is the first to examine IC, its antecedents and consequences in complex organizational buying scenarios. EP and LP appear to underpin IC which, itself, has significant effects on PP.

The purpose of this paper is to study does the structure of buying centre networks dynamically change between buying situations and during the buying processes. Furthermore, the influence of organizational culture on participation, extensivity, lateral involvement, and vertical involvement of buying centre networks is studied.

A qualitative study with empirical data gathered by semi‐structured interviews with the help of structured questions among Finnish business organizations early in 2007. The empirical data consist of 40 interviews conducted among small and medium sized companies. For the data analyses, the data were separately classified into themes relevant for each of the topics analyzed. The structured questions were used for validating the findings of qualitative analyses.

The structure of buying centre networks was found to be highly dynamic and change significantly between buying situations and phases of the buying process. Five types of networks were identified: expert, inward‐oriented informal networks; extensive, specialist and inward‐oriented formal networks; extensive, outward and more management‐oriented co‐operative networks; specification‐oriented management and responsibility‐led co‐operative networks; and management‐led specialist‐oriented versatile networks. The results also suggest power distance, risk tolerance, and individualism/collectivism are useful measures for analysing the factors influencing the structure of buying centre networks and explaining differences between buying situations and stages of the buying process.

Change in the surrounding business and technology environment means that buying centre networks are forced to follow suit, in order to maintain competitiveness and the efficiency of their buying operations. While cultural differences are commonly known to influence organizational behaviour, the effects of the organizational culture on buying centre network structures have not sufficiently been studied.