• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.110-122
• /
• 2010

The emergence of the field of organizational buying behavior in the mid-1960’s with the publication of Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing (1967) set the stage for a new paradigm of thinking about how business was conducted in markets other than those serving ultimate consumers. Whether it is "industrial marketing" or "business-to-business marketing" (B-to-B), organizational buying behavior remains the core differentiating characteristic of this domain of marketing. This paper explores the impact of several dynamic factors that have influenced how organizations relate to one another in a rapidly increasing interdependence, which in turn can impact organizational buying behavior. The paper also raises the question of whether or not the major conceptual models of organizational buying behavior in an interdependent world are still relevant to guide research and managerial thinking, in this dynamic business environment. The paper is structured to explore three questions related to organizational interdependencies: 1. What are the factors and trends driving the emergence of organizational interdependencies? 2. Will the major conceptual models of organizational buying behavior that have developed over the past half century be applicable in a world of interdependent organizations? 3. What are the implications of organizational interdependencies on the research and practice of organizational buying behavior? Consideration of the factors and trends driving organizational interdependencies revealed five critical drivers in the relationships among organizations that can impact their purchasing behavior: Accelerating Globalization, Flattening Networks of Organizations, Disrupting Value Chains, Intensifying Government Involvement, and Continuously Fragmenting Customer Needs. These five interlinked drivers of interdependency and their underlying technological advances can alter the relationships within and among organizations that buy products and services to remain competitive in their markets. Viewed in the context of a customer driven marketing strategy, these forces affect three levels of strategy development: (1) evolving customer needs, (2) the resulting product/service/solution offerings to meet these needs, and (3) the organization competencies and processes required to develop and implement the offerings to meet needs. The five drivers of interdependency among organizations do not necessarily operate independently in their impact on how organizations buy. They can interact with each other and become even more potent in their impact on organizational buying behavior. For example, accelerating globalization may influence the emergence of additional networks that further disrupt traditional value chain relationships, thereby changing how organizations purchase products and services. Increased government involvement in business operations in one country may increase costs of doing business and therefore drive firms to seek low cost sources in emerging markets in other countries. This can reduce employment opportunitiesn one country and increase them in another, further accelerating the pace of globalization. The second major question in the paper is what impact these drivers of interdependencies have had on the core conceptual models of organizational buying behavior. Consider the three enduring conceptual models developed in the Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing and Organizational Buying Behavior books: the organizational buying process, the buying center, and the buying situation. A review of these core models of organizational buying behavior, as originally conceptualized, shows they are still valid and not likely to change with the increasingly intense drivers of interdependency among organizations. What will change however is the way in which buyers and sellers interact under conditions of interdependency. For example, increased interdependencies can lead to increased opportunities for collaboration as well as conflict between buying and selling organizations, thereby changing aspects of the buying process. In addition, the importance of communication processes between and among organizations will increase as the role of trust becomes an important criterion for a successful buying relationship. The third question in the paper explored consequences and implications of these interdependencies on organizational buying behavior for practice and research. The following are considered in the paper: the need to increase understanding of network influences on organizational buying behavior, the need to increase understanding of the role of trust and value among organizational participants, the need to improve understanding of how to manage organizational buying in networked environments, the need to increase understanding of customer needs in the value network, and the need to increase understanding of the impact of emerging new business models on organizational buying behavior. In many ways, these needs deriving from increased organizational interdependencies are an extension of the conceptual tradition in organizational buying behavior. In 1977, Nicosia and Wind suggested a focus on inter-organizational over intra-organizational perspectives, a trend that has received considerable momentum since the 1990's. Likewise for managers to survive in an increasingly interdependent world, they will need to better understand the complexities of how organizations relate to one another. The transition from an inter-organizational to an interdependent perspective has begun, and must continue so as to develop an improved understanding of these important relationships. A shift to such an interdependent network perspective may require many academicians and practitioners to fundamentally challenge and change the mental models underlying their business and organizational buying behavior models. The focus can no longer be only on the dyadic relations of the buying organization and the selling organization but should involve all the related members of the network, including the network of customers, developers, and other suppliers and intermediaries. Consider for example the numerous partner networks initiated by SAP which involves over 9000 companies and over a million participants. This evolving, complex, and uncertain reality of interdependencies and dynamic networks requires reconsideration of how purchase decisions are made; as a result they should be the focus of the next phase of research and theory building among academics and the focus of practical models and experiments undertaken by practitioners. The hope is that such research will take place, not in the isolation of the ivory tower, nor in the confines of the business world, but rather, by increased collaboration of academics and practitioners. In conclusion, the consideration of increased interdependence among organizations revealed the continued relevance of the fundamental models of organizational buying behavior. However to increase the value of these models in an interdependent world, academics and practitioners should improve their understanding of (1) network influences, (2) how to better manage these influences, (3) the role of trust and value among organizational participants, (4) the evolution of customer needs in the value network, and (5) the impact of emerging new business models on organizational buying behavior. To accomplish this, greater collaboration between industry and academia is needed to advance our understanding of organizational buying behavior in an interdependent world.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.83-121
• /
• 2004

This study was carried out to examine how solid the production foundation of rice in Chung-Nam Province is, and, if not, to probe alternative measures through the size of farms specializing in rice, of which direction would be a pivot of rice industry-oriented policy. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : 1. The amount of rice production in Chung-Nam Province is highest in Korea and the size of paddy field area is the second largest : This implying that the probability that rice production in Chung-Nam Province would be severely influenced by a global trend of market conditions. The number of farms specializing in rice becoming the core group of rice farming account for 7.7 percent of the total number of farm household in Korea. Average field area financial support which had been input to farm household by Government had a noticeable effect on the improvement of the policy of farm-size program. 2. Farm-size program in Chung-Nam Province established from 1980 to 2002 in creased the cultivation size of paddy field to 19,484 hectares, and this program enhanced the buying and selling of farmland and the number of farmland bargain reached 6,431 household and 16,517 hectares, respectively, in 1995-2002. Meanwhile, long-term letting and hiring of farmland appeared so active that the bargain acreage reached 6,970 hectares, and farm involved was 7,059 households, however, the farm-exchange-and-unity program did not satisfy our expectation, because the retirement farm operators reluctantly participated to sell their farms. Another reason that had delayed the bargain of farms rested on the general category of social complication attendant upon the exchange and unity operation for scattered farm. Such difficulties would work negative effects out to carry on the target of farm-size work in general. 3. The following measures were presented to propel the farm-size promotion program : a. Occupation shift project, followed by the social security program for retirement and elderly farm operators, should be promptly established and also a number of types of incentives for promoting the letting and hiring work and farm-exchange-and-unity program would also be set up. b. To establish the effective key system of rice production, all the farm operators should increase the unit area yield of rice and lower the production cost. To do so, a great deal of production teams of rice equipped with managerial techniques and capabilities need to be organized. And, also, there should be appropriate arrays of facilities including information system. This plan is desirable to be in line with a diversity of the structural implement of regional integration based on farm system building. c. To extend the size of farm and to improve farm management, we have to devise the enlargement of individual size of farm for maximized management and the utilization of farm-size grouping method. In conclusion, it can be said that the farm-size project in Chung-Nam Province which has continued since the 1980s was satisfactorily achieved. However, we still have a lot of problems to be solved to break down the barrier for attainment of the desirable farm-size operation work.. Farm-size project has fairly close relation with farm specialization in rice and, thus, the positive support for farm household including the integrated program for both retirement farmers and off-farm operators should be considered to pursue the progressive development of the farm-size program, which is key means to successful achievement of rice farming enforcement in Chung-Nam Province.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.12 no.9
• /
• pp.3856-3868
• /
• 2011

Until recently, research trend in real estate has been focused on real estate market and the market analysis. But the studies on real estate training program development for real estate agents to improve their job performance are relatively short in numbers. Thus, this study shows empirical analysis of the needs for the training programs for real estate agents in Cheonan to improve their job performance. The results are as follows. First, in the survey of asking what educational contents they need in order to improve real estate agents' job performance, most of the respondents show their needs for the analysis of house's value, legal knowledge, real estate management, accounting, real estate marketing, and understanding of the real estate policy. This is because they are well aware that the best way of responding to the changing clients' needs comes from training programs. Secondly, asked about real estate marketing strategies, most of respondents showed their awareness of new strategies to meet the needs of clients. This is because new forms of marketing strategies including internet ads are needed in the field as the paradigm including Information Technology changes. Thirdly, asked about the need for real estate-related training programs, 92% of the respondents answered they need real estate education programs run by the continuing education centers of the universities. In addition, the survey showed their needs for retraining programs that utilize the resources in the local universities. Other than this, to have effective and efficient training programs, they demanded running a training system by utilizing the human resources of the universities under the name of the department of 'Real Estate Contract' for real estate agents' job performance. Fourthly, the survey revealed real estate management(44.2%) and real estate marketing(42.3%) is the most chosen contents they want to take in the regular course for improving real estate agents' job performance. This shows their will to understand clients' needs through the mind of real estate management and real estate marketing. The survey showed they prefer the training programs as an irregular course to those in the regular one. Despite the above results, this study chose subjects only in Cheanan and thus it needs to research more diverse areas. The needs of programs to improve real estate agents job performance should be analyzed empirically targeting the real estate agents not just in Cheonan but also cities like Pyeongchon, Ilsan and Bundang in which real estate business is booming, as well as undergraduate and graduate students whose major is real estate studies. These studies will be able to provide information to help develop the customized training programs by evaluating elements that real estate agents need in order to meet clients satisfaction and improve their job performance. Many variables of the program development learned through these studies can be incorporated in the curriculum of the real estate studies and used very practically as information for the development of the real estate studies in this fast changing era.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.59-88
• /
• 2008

Digital Convergence means integration between industry, technology, and contents, and in marketing, it usually comes with creation of new types of product and service under the base of digital technology as digitalization progress in electro-communication industries including telecommunication, home appliance, and computer industries. One can see digital convergence not only in instruments such as PC, AV appliances, cellular phone, but also in contents, network, service that are required in production, modification, distribution, re-production of information. Convergence in contents started around 1990. Convergence in network and service begins as broadcasting and telecommunication integrates and DMB(digital multimedia broadcasting), born in May, 2005 is the symbolic icon in this trend. There are some positive and negative expectations about DMB. The reason why two opposite expectations exist is that DMB does not come out from customer's need but from technology development. Therefore, customers might have hard time to interpret the real meaning of DMB. Time is quite critical to a high tech product, like DMB because another product with same function from different technology can replace the existing product within short period of time. If DMB does not positioning well to customer's mind quickly, another products like Wibro, IPTV, or HSPDA could replace it before it even spreads out. Therefore, positioning strategy is critical for success of DMB product. To make correct positioning strategy, one needs to understand how consumer interprets DMB and how consumer's interpretation can be changed via communication strategy. In this study, we try to investigate how consumer perceives a new product, like DMB and how AD strategy change consumer's perception. More specifically, the paper segment consumers into sub-groups based on their DMB perceptions and compare their characteristics in order to understand how they perceive DMB. And, expose them different printed ADs that have messages guiding consumer think DMB in specific ways, either cellular phone or personal TV. Research Question 1: Segment consumers according to perceptions about DMB and compare characteristics of segmentations. Research Question 2: Compare perceptions about DMB after AD that induces categorization of DMB in direction for each segment. If one understand and predict a direction in which consumer perceive a new product, firm can select target customers easily. We segment consumers according to their perception and analyze characteristics in order to find some variables that can influence perceptions, like prior experience, usage, or habit. And then, marketing people can use this variables to identify target customers and predict their perceptions. If one knows how customer's perception is changed via AD message, communication strategy could be constructed properly. Specially, information from segmented customers helps to develop efficient AD strategy for segment who has prior perception. Research framework consists of two measurements and one treatment, O1 X O2. First observation is for collecting information about consumer's perception and their characteristics. Based on first observation, the paper segment consumers into two groups, one group perceives DMB similar to Cellular phone and the other group perceives DMB similar to TV. And compare characteristics of two segments in order to find reason why they perceive DMB differently. Next, we expose two kinds of AD to subjects. One AD describes DMB as Cellular phone and the other Ad describes DMB as personal TV. When two ADs are exposed to subjects, consumers don't know their prior perception of DMB, in other words, which subject belongs 'similar-to-Cellular phone' segment or 'similar-to-TV' segment? However, we analyze the AD's effect differently for each segment. In research design, final observation is for investigating AD effect. Perception before AD is compared with perception after AD. Comparisons are made for each segment and for each AD. For the segment who perceives DMB similar to TV, AD that describes DMB as cellular phone could change the prior perception. And AD that describes DMB as personal TV, could enforce the prior perception. For data collection, subjects are selected from undergraduate students because they have basic knowledge about most digital equipments and have open attitude about a new product and media. Total number of subjects is 240. In order to measure perception about DMB, we use indirect measurement, comparison with other similar digital products. To select similar digital products, we pre-survey students and then finally select PDA, Car-TV, Cellular Phone, MP3 player, TV, and PSP. Quasi experiment is done at several classes under instructor's allowance. After brief introduction, prior knowledge, awareness, and usage about DMB as well as other digital instruments is asked and their similarities and perceived characteristics are measured. And then, two kinds of manipulated color-printed AD are distributed and similarities and perceived characteristics for DMB are re-measured. Finally purchase intension, AD attitude, manipulation check, and demographic variables are asked. Subjects are given small gift for participation. Stimuli are color-printed advertising. Their actual size is A4 and made after several pre-test from AD professionals and students. As results, consumers are segmented into two subgroups based on their perceptions of DMB. Similarity measure between DMB and cellular phone and similarity measure between DMB and TV are used to classify consumers. If subject whose first measure is less than the second measure, she is classified into segment A and segment A is characterized as they perceive DMB like TV. Otherwise, they are classified as segment B, who perceives DMB like cellular phone. Discriminant analysis on these groups with their characteristics of usage and attitude shows that Segment A knows much about DMB and uses a lot of digital instrument. Segment B, who thinks DMB as cellular phone doesn't know well about DMB and not familiar with other digital instruments. So, consumers with higher knowledge perceive DMB similar to TV because launching DMB advertising lead consumer think DMB as TV. Consumers with less interest on digital products don't know well about DMB AD and then think DMB as cellular phone. In order to investigate perceptions of DMB as well as other digital instruments, we apply Proxscal analysis, Multidimensional Scaling technique at SPSS statistical package. At first step, subjects are presented 21 pairs of 7 digital instruments and evaluate similarity judgments on 7 point scale. And for each segment, their similarity judgments are averaged and similarity matrix is made. Secondly, Proxscal analysis of segment A and B are done. At third stage, get similarity judgment between DMB and other digital instruments after AD exposure. Lastly, similarity judgments of group A-1, A-2, B-1, and B-2 are named as 'after DMB' and put them into matrix made at the first stage. Then apply Proxscal analysis on these matrixes and check the positional difference of DMB and after DMB. The results show that map of segment A, who perceives DMB similar as TV, shows that DMB position closer to TV than to Cellular phone as expected. Map of segment B, who perceive DMB similar as cellular phone shows that DMB position closer to Cellular phone than to TV as expected. Stress value and R-square is acceptable. And, change results after stimuli, manipulated Advertising show that AD makes DMB perception bent toward Cellular phone when Cellular phone-like AD is exposed, and that DMB positioning move towards Car-TV which is more personalized one when TV-like AD is exposed. It is true for both segment, A and B, consistently. Furthermore, the paper apply correspondence analysis to the same data and find almost the same results. The paper answers two main research questions. The first one is that perception about a new product is made mainly from prior experience. And the second one is that AD is effective in changing and enforcing perception. In addition to above, we extend perception change to purchase intention. Purchase intention is high when AD enforces original perception. AD that shows DMB like TV makes worst intention. This paper has limitations and issues to be pursed in near future. Methodologically, current methodology can't provide statistical test on the perceptual change, since classical MDS models, like Proxscal and correspondence analysis are not probability models. So, a new probability MDS model for testing hypothesis about configuration needs to be developed. Next, advertising message needs to be developed more rigorously from theoretical and managerial perspective. Also experimental procedure could be improved for more realistic data collection. For example, web-based experiment and real product stimuli and multimedia presentation could be employed. Or, one can display products together in simulated shop. In addition, demand and social desirability threats of internal validity could influence on the results. In order to handle the threats, results of the model-intended advertising and other "pseudo" advertising could be compared. Furthermore, one can try various level of innovativeness in order to check whether it make any different results (cf. Moon 2006). In addition, if one can create hypothetical product that is really innovative and new for research, it helps to make a vacant impression status and then to study how to form impression in more rigorous way.