Abstract:
Despite the fact that well over 1000 articles appeared on industrial purchasing in the past two decades, relatively little progress has been made toward understanding and predicting buyer behaviour patterns. The key reason for this phenomenon, in our view, is the lack of replication. Most surveys seek to break new ground; as a result, they prove to be one-of-a-kind efforts, not amenable for comparison. A survey of the literature disclosed only one set of related studies (U.S.A., 1950 and 1969; U.K., 1967), but even these were not contrasted with each other.