Organizational buying of capital equipment involving persons across several authority levels Available to Purchase

We develop a general paradigm of organizational buying and customer preferences at several authority levels within retail firms. The paradigm includes ten propositions, including the following three: (1) Organizational buying involving persons at several authority levels occurs for purchases judged by the customer firm to be: (a) highly important, that (b) occur infrequently; examples include capital equipment purchases. (2) The consideration sets of possible product alternatives and suppliers are narrow for organizational buying involving several authority levels. (3) Professional buyers have moderate to low authority in the choice of product design and supplier in organizational buying involving several authority levels. The efficacy of the ten propositions is examined in two phases in a field study. Implications for building theory and improving marketing and purchasing decisions of capital equipment related to retail store operations are provided.