A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL BUYER BEHAVIOR

Jerrold Van Winter

Review of Business and Finance Studies, 2014, vol. 5, issue 2, 75-83

Abstract: The primary goal of this qualitative research was to gather information from practitioners about the buying process used by companies in the United States and Germany when purchasing customized software. Before using a popular organizational buyer behavior process model for an international study the author believed it was important to examine whether companies in the countries in the study actually used each step of the model. A multiple-case study design was chosen, since it allowed both for a better understanding of the actual software buying process used by companies and for a comparison of buying processes between companies. The author observed and interviewed individuals at four company’s corporate headquarters, two companies in the United States and two companies in Germany. The study found that both Americans and German companies do, to varying degrees, go through each stage of a widely used organizational buyer behavior model. It was also observed, however, that the amount of time and effort dedicated to different stages of the model varied by country. The study also identified differences between buyers in the United States and Germany in regard to the perceived importance of certain vendor selection criteria, which provides support for future empirical studies.

Keywords: International Organization Buyer Behavior; International Vendor Selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M16 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.theibfr2.com/RePEc/ibf/rbfstu/rbfs-v5n2-2014/RBFS-V5N2-2014-8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibf:rbfstu:v:5:y:2014:i:2:p:75-83

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Business and Finance Studies is currently edited by Terrance Jalbert

More articles in Review of Business and Finance Studies from The Institute for Business and Finance Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mercedes Jalbert ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).