Abstract
As organizational buying systems grow more complex and sophisticated, suppliers increasingly rely on buyer advocacy: an individual buyer’s efforts to influence his/her colleagues such that the supplier’s standing is improved. Drawing from cognitive response theory, the authors hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between a buyer’s advocacy for a supplier and the customer’s purchases from that supplier. They theorize that this effect is moderated by the advocate’s industry experience and customer–supplier relationship characteristics. An analysis of multisource data from a B2B service provider (Study 1) supports the predicted inverted U-shaped relationship, while a unique dataset from a large industrial supplier (Study 2) provides broad support for the hypothesized moderators. Finally, a randomized experiment (Study 3) replicates key findings and corroborates the theorized cognitive response mechanisms. Findings contribute to the limited literature on buyer advocacy within the organizational buying domain and offer practical implications for suppliers and buyers.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We use the term customer when referring to the entire customer organization, and we use the term buyer when referring to the specific individual within the buying system of the customer organization.
The recurring interactions in buying systems contrast with the focus on a single purchasing decision in a buying center (Ronchetto Jr et al. 1989). We thank an anonymous reviewer for emphasizing this distinction.
The most notable extant measure of buyer advocacy (Krapfel Jr. 1985) was not appropriate for our research, as it focuses on general buyer-level advocacy via formal discussion among co-located colleagues rather than advocacy for a specific supplier via many possible communication channels among relevant others within the buying firm.
We also tested a model that included the advocate’s age and the advocate’s experience with the supplier (each measured with single items) as control variables. To remove shared variance, industry experience was orthogonalized with respect to age, and experience with the supplier was orthogonalized with respect to age, industry experience, and customer–supplier relationship length (Liu et al. 2015). Our substantive results hold in sign and significance under this alternative specification.
The relevant formulas are: m1 = a0 + a1x + a2x2 + a3z + a4xz + a5x2z, m2 = b0 + b1x + b2x2 + b3z + b4xz + b5x2z, and y = c0 + c1m1 + c2m2 + c3x + c4x2 + c5z + c6xz + c7x2z where m1 and m2 represent the mediators, x represents buyer advocacy, z represents the valence moderator, and y represents intentions to support purchasing from the supplier. The conditional indirect effect is therefore c1(a1 + a22x + a4z + a52xz) + c2(b1 + b22x + b4z + b52xz). Standard errors are estimated using the delta method to account for the non-normal sampling distribution of the conditional indirect effects (Hayes 2013).
References
Adamson, B., Dixon, M., Spenner, P., & Toman, N. (2015). The challenger customer. New York: Penguin Random House.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. (2012). Specification, evaluation, and interpretation of structural equation models. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(1), 8–34.
Bergkvist, L., & Rossiter, J. R. (2007). The predictive validity of multiple-item versus single-item measures of the same constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 44(2), 175–184.
Boush, D. M., & Loken, B. (1991). A process-tracing study of brand extension evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 28(1), 16–28.
Brock, T. C., Ostrom, T. M., & Petty, R. E. (1981). Cognitive responses in persuasion. Hillsdale: Erlbaum Associates.
Bunn, M. D., & Clopton, S. W. (1993). Patterns of information source use across industrial purchase situation. Decision Sciences, 24(2), 457–478.
Cameron, A. C., & Trivedi, P. K. (2010). Microeconometrics using Stata (Vol. 2). College Station: Stata press.
Churchill, G. A. (1979). A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 16(1), 64–73.
Clarkson, J. J., Tormala, Z. L., & Leone, C. (2011). A self-validation perspective on the mere thought effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 449–454.
Claycomb, C., & Frankwick, G. L. (2004). A contingency perspective of communication, conflict resolution and effort in buyer-supplier relationships. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 40(1), 18–34.
Dawes, P. L., Lee, D. Y., & Dowling, G. R. (1998). Information control and influence in emergent buying centers. Journal of Marketing, 62(3), 55–68.
Dent, J. (2011). Distribution channels: Understanding & managing channels to market. Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
Dixon, M., & Adamson, B. (2011). The challenger sale: Taking control of the customer conversation. New York: Penguin Group.
Dwyer, F. R., Schurr, P. H., & Oh, S. (1987). Developing buyer-seller relationships. Journal of Marketing, 51(April), 11–27.
Farrell, M. A., & Schroder, B. (1996). Influence strategies in organizational buying decisions. Industrial Marketing Management, 25, 293–303.
Fazio, R. H. (2000). Accessible attitudes as tools for object appraisal: Their costs and benefits. In G. R. Maio & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Why we evaluate: Functions of attitudes (pp. 1–16). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluation structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50.
George, E., & Chattopadhyay, P. (2005). One foot in each camp: The dual identification of contract workers. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(1), 68–99.
Greenwald, A. G. (1968). Cognitive learning, cognitive response to persuasion, and attitude change. In A. G. Greenwald, T. C. Brock, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 147–170). New York: Academic Press.
Greenwald, A. G., & Leavitt, C. (1984). Audience involvement in advertising: Four levels. Journal of Consumer Research, 11(1), 581–592.
Grewal, R., Lilien, G. L., Bharadwaj, S., Jindal, P., Kayande, U., Lusch, R. F., Mantrala, M., Palmatier, R. W., Rindfleisch, A., Scheer, L. K., Spekman, R., & Sridhar, S. (2015). Business-to-business buying: Challenges and opportunities. Customer Needs and Solutions, 2(3), 193–208.
Gundlach, G. T., & Cannon, J. P. (2010). “Trust but verify”? The performance implications of verification strategies in trusting relationships. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 38(4), 399–417.
Haans, R. F. J., Pieters, C., & He, Z. (2016). Thinking about U: Theorizing and testing U- and inverted U-shaped relationships in strategy research. Strategic Management Journal, 37(7), 1177–1195.
Hada, M., Grewal, R., & Lilien, G. L. (2014). Supplier-selected referrals. Journal of Marketing, 78(2), 34–51.
Hall, M. C., Rao, C. P., & Elliott, K. M. (1992). The impact of individual differences on the use of risk reduction strategies in organizational purchasing. In Proceedings of the 1992 Academy of Marketing Science Conference (pp. 33–34).
Harmon, R. R., & Coney, K. A. (1982). The persuasive effects of source credibility in buy and lease situations. Journal of Marketing Research, 19(2), 255–260.
Hatcher, L. (1994). A step-by-step approach to using the SAS system for factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Cary.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Heckman, J. J. (1979). Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica, 47(1), 153–161.
Henthorne, T. L., LaTour, M. S., & Williams, A. J. (1992). Initial impressions in the organizational buyer-seller dyad: Sales management implications. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 12(3), 57–65.
Huber, P. J. (1967). The behavior of maximum likelihood estimates under nonstandard conditions. Proceedings of the fifth Berkeley symposium on mathematical statistics and probability, 1(1), 221–233.
Hughes, D. E., & Ahearne, M. (2010). Energizing the reseller’s sales force: The power of brand identification. Journal of Marketing, 74(4), 81–96.
Hulland, J., Baumgartner, H., & Smith, K. M. (2018). Marketing survey research best practices: Evidence and recommendations from a review of JAMS articles. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 46(1), 92–108.
Hutt, M. D., & Speh, T. H. (2004). Business marketing management: A strategic view of industrial and organizational markets (8th ed.). Mason: Thomson Learning.
Ingram, T. N., LaForge, R. W., Avila, R. A., Schwepker, C. H., Jr., & Williams, M. R. (2017). Sell5: Trust-based professional selling (2nd ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.
Jap, S. D. (1999). Pie-expansion efforts: Collaboration processes in buyer-supplier relationships. Journal of Marketing Research, 36(4), 461–475.
Jia, H., Yang, S., Lu, X., & Park, C. W. (2018). Do consumers always spend more when coupon face value is larger? The inverted U-shaped effect of coupon face value on consumer spending level. Journal of Marketing, 82(4), 70–85.
Johnston, W. J., & Chandler, J. D. (2012). The organizational buying center: Innovation, knowledge management and brand. In G. L. Lilien & R. Grewal (Eds.), Handbook of business-to-business marketing. Boston: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Johnston, W. J., & Marshall, G. W. (2013). Contemporary selling: Building relationships, creating value. New York: Routledge.
Kalwani, M. U., & Narayandas, N. (1995). Long-term manufacturer-supplier relationships: Do they pay off for supplier firms? Journal of Marketing, 59(January), 1–16.
Kemp, E. A., Borders, A. L., Anaza, N. A., & Johnston, W. J. (2018). The heart in organizational buying: Marketers’ understanding of emotions and decision-making of buyers. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 33(1), 19–28.
Kim, K., Hayes, J. L., Avant, J. A., & Reid, L. N. (2014). Trends in advertising research: A longitudinal analysis of leading advertising, marketing, and communication journals, 1980 to 2010. Journal of Advertising, 43(3), 296–316.
Krapfel, R. E., Jr. (1985). An advocacy behavior model of organizational buyers’ vendor choice. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 51–59.
Kumkale, G. T., AlbarracÍn, D., & Seignourel, P. J. (2010). The effects of source credibility in the presence or absence of prior attitudes: Implications for the design of persuasive communication campaigns. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(6), 1325–1356.
Lingqvist, O., Plotkin, C. L., & Stanley, J. (2015). Do you really understand how your customers buy? McKinsey Quarterly, February, 1–6.
Liu, F., Sercu, P., & Vandebroek, M. (2015). Orthogonalized regressors and spurious precision, with an application to currency exposures. Journal of International Money and Finance, 51, 245–263.
Macdonald, E. K., Kleinaltenkamp, M., & Wilson, H. N. (2016). How business customers judge solutions: Solution quality and value in use. Journal of Marketing, 80(3), 96–120.
O’Brien, R. M. (2007). A caution regarding rules of thumb for variance inflation factors. Quality and Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 41, 673–690.
Oreg, S. (2003). Resistance to change: Developing an individual differences measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 680–693.
Oreg, S., Nevo, O., Metzer, H., Leder, N., & Castro, D. (2009). Dispositional resistance to change and occupational interests and choices. Journal of Career Assessment, 17(3), 312–323.
Paesbrugghe, B., Sharma, A., Rangarajan, D., & Syam, N. (2018). Personal selling and the purchasing function: Where do we go from here? Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 38(1), 123–143.
Palmatier, R. W., Scheer, L. K., Houston, M. B., Evans, K. R., & Gopalakrishna, S. (2007). Use of relationship marketing programs in building customer–salesperson and customer–firm relationships: Differential influences on financial outcomes. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 24(3), 210–223.
Palmatier, R. W., Jarvis, C. B., Bechkoff, J. R., & Kardes, F. R. (2009). The role of customer gratitude in relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 1–18.
Panagopoulos, N. G., Rapp, A. A., & Ogilvie, J. L. (2017). Salesperson solution involvement and sales performance: The contingent role of supplier firm and customer-supplier relationship characteristics. Journal of Marketing, 81(4), 144–164.
Perdue, B. C., & Summers, J. O. (1986). Checking the success of manipulations in marketing experiments. Journal of Marketing Research, 23(4), 317–326.
Petrin, A., & Train, K. (2010). A control function approach to endogeneity in consumer choice models. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(1), 3–13.
Pierce, J. R., & Aguinis, H. (2013). The too-much-of-a-good-thing effect in management. Journal of Management, 39(2), 313–338.
Preacher, K. J., Rucker, D. D., & Hayes, A. F. (2007). Addressing moderated mediation hypotheses: Theory, methods, and prescriptions. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 42(1), 185–227.
Ronchetto, J. R., Jr., Hutt, M. D., & Reingen, P. H. (1989). Embedded influence patterns in organizational buying systems. Journal of Marketing, 53(4), 51–62.
Rucker, D. D., Petty, R. E., & Briñol, P. (2008). What's in a frame anyway?: A meta-cognitive analysis of the impact of one versus two sided message framing on attitude certainty. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18(2), 137–149.
Scheer, L. K., Miao, C. F., & Garrett, J. (2010). The effects of supplier capabilities on industrial customers’ loyalty: The role of dependence. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 38(1), 90–104.
Schimel, Elliot (2018). Strategic social media is essential for driving B2B sales. Retrieved September 1, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/03/22/strategic-social-media-is-essential-for-driving-b2b-sales/#65b0fbd71db0.
Schmidt, K., Adamson, B., & Bird, A. (2015). Making the consensus sale. HBR, 3, 107–113.
Sharma, A. (1990). The persuasive effect of salesperson credibility: Conceptual and empirical examination. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 10(4), 71–80.
Sheth, J. N. (1973). A model of industrial buyer behavior. Journal of Marketing, 37(4), 50–56.
Spekman, R. E., & Stern, L. W. (1979). Environmental uncertainty and buying group structure: An empirical investigation. Journal of Marketing, 43(Spring), 54–64.
Sternthal, B., Dholakia, R., & Leavitt, C. (1978). The persuasive effect of source credibility: Tests of cognitive response. Journal of Consumer Research, 4(4), 252–260.
Stock, J. H., & Yogo, M. (2005). Testing for weak instruments in linear IV regression. In Identification and Inference for Econometric Models: Essays in Honor of Thomas Rothenberg. Cambridge University press.
Stumpf, C., & Baum, M. (2016). Customer referral reward-brand-fit: A schema congruity perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 33(7), 542–558.
Tanner, J. F. (1999). Organizational buying theories: A bridge to relationships theory. Industrial Marketing Management, 28(3), 245–255.
Tormala, Z. L., & Petty, R. E. (2004). Source credibility and attitude certainty: A metacognitive analysis of resistance to persuasion. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14(4), 427–442.
Tuli, K. R., Bharadwaj, S. G., & Kohli, A. K. (2010). Ties that bind: The impact of multiple types of ties with a customer on sales growth and sales volatility. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(1), 36–50.
Ulaga, W., & Kohli, A. K. (2018). The role of a solutions salesperson: Reducing uncertainty and fostering adaptiveness. Industrial Marketing Management, 69(October 2017), 161–168.
Venkatesh, R., Kohli, A. K., & Zaltman, G. (1995). Influence strategies in buying centers. Journal of Marketing, 59(4), 71–82.
Wang, G., & Netemeyer, R. G. (2002). The effects of job autonomy, customer demandingness, and trait competitiveness on salesperson learning, self-efficacy, and performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30(3), 217–228.
Webster, F. E., Jr., & Wind, Y. (1972). A general model for understanding organizational buying behavior. Journal of Marketing, 36, 12–19.
White, H. (1980). A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 48, 817–838.
Wilson, E. J., Lilien, G. L., & Wilson, D. T. (1991). Developing and testing a contingency paradigm of group choice in organizational buying. Journal of Marketing Research, 28(4), 452–466.
Winer, R. S. (1983). Attrition bias in econometric models estimated with panel data. Journal of Marketing Research, 20(2), 177–186.
Wu, Z., Steward, M. D., & Hartley, J. L. (2010). Wearing many hats: Supply managers’ behavioral complexity and its impact on supplier relationships. Journal of Business Research, 63(8), 817–823.
Zhang, J. Z., Watson, G. F., Palmatier, R. W., & Dant, R. P. (2016). Dynamic relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 80(5), 53–75.
Zhao, X., Lynch, J. G., Jr., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering baron and Kenny: Myths and truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 197–206.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Stefan Wuyts served as Area Editor for this article.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 17 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lawrence, J.M., Crecelius, A.T., Scheer, L.K. et al. When it pays to have a friend on the inside: contingent effects of buyer advocacy on B2B suppliers. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 47, 837–857 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00672-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00672-8