Emerging models of organizational buying processes

Abstract The purpose of this article is to assess past and current trends in the literature on buying decisions by organizations and to look constructively toward future problems and developments. Until recently, organizational buying behavior has been largely ignored. There are, however, a number of promising developments, and we might be at the threshold of moving from alchemy to the beginning stages of scientific understanding. The article starts with a brief discussion of the “methodological” and “substantive” choices that can be made in studying organizational processes that underlie buying behavior. An appreciation of these choices is necessary for the examination of the past and current literature. The major trends in the study of organizational buying behavior are then identified and evaluated. Building upon these trends, we sketch the basic dimensions of the organizational buying processes and highlight some of the major problem areas to be faced in future research and model development. Throughout the article we assume some familiarity with the professional and academic literature in industrial buying.