The Buying Center: Structure and Interaction Patterns
研究了31家企业的资本设备与工业服务采购，分析采购小组的组成和互动过程，验证了沟通网络视角的合理性及其管理意义。
This article reports a first step toward developing some quantifiable dimensions of the industrial buying task group, called the buying center. Group composition and interaction processes were examined for purchases of capital equipment and industrial services in 31 firms. Data were analyzed to test the soundness of a communications network perspective on the buying center and the managerial implications of such a perspective. Equipment and service purchase measures differed reliably across several indices suggested by our theoretical orientation. Organizational structure and purchase situation attributes correlated in generally expected directions with the dimensions of the buying group.