Literature on organizational buying behaviour has paid limited attention to the so-called “ongoing search”, i.e. search activities that are independent of specific purchase needs and decisions. The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the buyer search process by investigating in detail the behaviour of industrial buyers as they search relevant information in the context of “live communication” events like trade fairs and individual marketing events. From a methodological point of view, our research differs from conventional approaches in the study of trade shows and, more in general, the buyer search process since it relies on the ethnographic methods that are increasingly common in consumer behaviour and “mainstream” marketing, where they have contributed to bridge the gap between the “ideal”, utility-maximizing individuals assumed by most studies and the much more complex reality of real consumers. Because of the interplay between theory and methods, we argue, the use of ethnographic methods paves the path to interesting discoveries also in the case of industrial buyer behaviour.
Same place next year… An in-depth analysis of ongoing search among industrial buyers
BORGHINI, STEFANIA;GOLFETTO, FRANCESCA;RINALLO, DIEGO
2005
Abstract
Literature on organizational buying behaviour has paid limited attention to the so-called “ongoing search”, i.e. search activities that are independent of specific purchase needs and decisions. The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the buyer search process by investigating in detail the behaviour of industrial buyers as they search relevant information in the context of “live communication” events like trade fairs and individual marketing events. From a methodological point of view, our research differs from conventional approaches in the study of trade shows and, more in general, the buyer search process since it relies on the ethnographic methods that are increasingly common in consumer behaviour and “mainstream” marketing, where they have contributed to bridge the gap between the “ideal”, utility-maximizing individuals assumed by most studies and the much more complex reality of real consumers. Because of the interplay between theory and methods, we argue, the use of ethnographic methods paves the path to interesting discoveries also in the case of industrial buyer behaviour.
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