B2B Decision-making Styles Scale

Abstract

This measurement instrument determines procurement decision-making styles in the B2B (business-to-business) sector. 26 items measure seven B2B decision-making styles: perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer, confused and poorly informed buyer, fast and careless buyer, novelty and innovation seeking buyer, habitual and loyal buyer, price conscious buyer, and brand and reputation conscious buyer. The B2B Decision-making Styles Scale can be used to segment industrial markets and to evaluate the decision-making of a specific company and its buying center regarding its procurement process.

• Author: Godbersen, H., & Gully, V.
• Language Documentation: English
• Language Items: English
• Number of Items: 26
• Survey Mode: CASI, paper & pencil; the measurement instrument can be adjusted to serve in CATI, CAPI etc. mode
• Processing Time: Approx. 3 to 4 minutes
• Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha = .57 to .88; Dillon-Goldstein’s rho = .81 to .91
• Validity: Evidence for content and criterion validity
• Construct: Procurement decision-making styles of companies
• Catchwords: Business-to-business, B2B, decision-making-styles, B2B decision-making styles, procurement, B2B procurement, business decisions, procurement decisions, procurement decision-making styles
• Status of Development: validated

Instrument

Instruction

Below, you find some statements about the positions and decisions of your company when it comes to procuring goods and services from its suppliers. Please indicate how much you agree with each statement on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree).

Items

The items of the measurement instrument are presented in Table 1 and allocated to their respective subscales, representing the B2B (business-to-business) decision-making styles:

• PQCB = Perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer
• CPIB = Confused and poorly informed buyer
• FCB = Fast and careless buyer
• NISB = Novelty and innovation seeking buyer
• HLB = Habitual and loyal buyer
• PCB = Price conscious buyer
• BRCB = Brand and reputation conscious buyer

Table 1

Items and Subscales

No.	Item	Polarity	Subscale
1	Procuring very good quality is very important for my company.	+	PQCB
2	When purchasing products or services, my company attempts to get the very best or perfect choice.	+	PQCB
3	My company normally attempts to buy the best overall quality.	+	PQCB
4	My company puts special efforts into choosing the very best quality products or services.	+	PQCB
5	My company´s standards and expectations for product or service purchases are very high.	+	PQCB
6	My company takes the time to carefully purchase the best option.	+	PQCB
7	Suppliers that do the most advertising are usually very good choices for my company.	+	CPIB
8	There are so many suppliers to choose from that the buying agents in my company get often confused.	+	CPIB
9	Sometimes it is hard for my company to choose which suppliers to buy from.	+	CPIB
10	The more information my company receives about products or services, the harder it is for the buying agent to choose the best option.	+	CPIB
11	All the information my company gets on different products or services confuses the buying agents.	+	CPIB
12	When purchasing products or services, my company does not give so much thought or care.	+	FCB
13	In my company, procurement is done very quickly, buying the first product or service or from the first supplier that seems good enough.	+	FCB
14	My company should plan its procurement more carefully than it usually does.	+	FCB
15	My company buys impulsively.	+	FCB
16	My company makes thoughtless purchases that it later regrets.	+	FCB
17	My company usually has the very newest products or services available.	+	NISB
18	My company keeps its inventories up-to-date with the upcoming product or service novelties.	+	NISB
19	My company is keen on buying novelty products or services.	+	NISB
20	My company has favorite’s suppliers it buys from over and over.	+	HLB
21	Once my company finds a suitable supplier, it holds on to it.	+	HLB
22	My company buys from the same suppliers each time it undergoes purchasing activities.	+	HLB
23	My company searches carefully to find the best value for the money it spends.	+	PCB
24	My company carefully monitors how much it spends.	+	PCB
25	My company considers that the well-known national and international suppliers are the best to buy from.	+	BRCB
26	My company prefers to buy from the best-selling suppliers.	+	BRCB

Response specifications

Generally, it is possible to use any form of rating scale to measure the B2B decision-making styles. However, it is advised to either use a six-step rating scale or a continuous rating scale from 0 to 100. The poles of the scale are labelled “completely disagree” and “completely agree”.

Scoring

The arithmetic mean of the items of every subscale serves as the value for the respective B2B decision-making style. This means:

• Perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer (PQCB) = mean of items 1 to 6
• Confused and poorly informed buyer (CPIB) = mean of items 7 to 11
• Fast and careless buyer (FCB) = mean of items 12 to 16
• Novelty and innovation seeking buyer (NISB) = mean of items 17 to 19
• Habitual and loyal buyer (HLB) = mean of items 20 to 22
• Price conscious buyer (PCB) = mean of items 23 and 24
• Brand and reputation conscious buyer (BRCB) = mean of items 25 and 26

It should be noted that every dimension of the measurement instrument represents a B2B decision-making style, which could, but do not need to be, mutually exclusive. Thus, a score for every subscale has to be calculated and a general scale score, covering all of the 26 items, does not make sense. It is advised to use forced ratings to avoid missing values, especially with regard to the last four B2B decision making styles as they are represented by only three or two items. If forced ratings are not possible, listwise deletion or any form of imputation is possible, keeping the respective positive and negative aspects in mind.

Application field

The B2B Decision-making Styles Scale can be used to segment business-to-business markets. It can also be used to assess the decision-making of specific companies and their buying center’s with regard to procurement processes.

The B2B Decision-making Styles Scale, as described here, can be applied in online and written questionnaires. However, slight modifications of the instruction allow the use of the instrument in other modes, such as personal or phone interviews.

Theory

Consumer buying behaviour and the segmentation of consumer markets are widely researched. Amongst others, approaches can be found with regard to the consumers’ lifestyles (e.g. Burns & Harrison, 1979; Douglas & Urban, 1977; Villani & Lehmann, 1975) and consumer decision-making characteristics (e.g. Darden & Reynolds, 1971; Sproles & Kendall, 1986; Stephenson & Willet, 1969; Westbrook & Black, 1985). To the best of our knowledge, such approaches do not exist for B2B markets (business-to-business markets). Segmentation approaches and, therewith, the research of buying behaviour within the B2B sector are primarily focused on “hard facts”, such as geographic, “demographic”, situational, organisational and buying centre related characteristics of companies (e.g. Abratt, 1993; Shapiro & Bonoma, 1984; Weinstein, 2004).

It, however, appears plausible that companies and their buying center’s, like consumers, show typical decision-making processes with regard to their procurement processes. Furthermore, it also makes sense to assume that understanding companies and buying center’s in their decision-making can contribute more to understanding and predicting their behaviour than just focussing on the afore-mentioned “hard facts”, which can be seen as rather “superficial” with regard to making procurement decisions. Thus, we argue that the approach of consumer decision-making types and, therewith, the respective measurement instruments can be transferred from consumer markets to B2B markets, if adjusted accordingly.

Against this backdrop, we defined seven B2B decision-making styles, which are characterized as follows:

• The perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer represents an organization that constantly and deliberately searches for the best quality products, spending a considerable amount of its time and effort in due diligence and information gathering, to make educated decisions. Since these companies seek to purchase the most perfect choices, their expectations on product excellence and superiority are very high. This makes product quality the most outstanding purchase criterion used in their decision-making. This pursuit of perfectionism goes hand in hand with the company’s competitive strategies, which will only be satisfied by products that are differentiable from the rest through high quality. In this sense, only exceptional products will catch this firm’s attention, leaving fairly good offers of a lower quality out of the company ́s choice spectrum.
• The confused and poorly informed buyer represents a company that is overwhelmed by the amount of information it receives from different suppliers and products, making the decision-making process difficult, slow, with a lot of hesitation, uncertainty and insecure decisions. This excess of information confuses the firm and produces doubt on to what extent each offer can satisfy the demands of the company. Additionally, this type of buyer has normally poor to none information sources, and therefore tends to rely on advertising stimuli to make decisions.
• The fast and careless buyer, unlike the perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer, does not plan the procurement process, nor invests time and effort in the buying decision. Such a company settles for the first supplier or product that appears to be sufficient. Since expectations on product performance and attributes are not very high, it makes quick and impulsive purchases. Occasionally, these thoughtless decisions present economic consequences that the firm regrets.
• The novelty and innovation seeking buyer represents a company that is very much into innovative and ground-breaking products, which play with the limits of the established technology. For this reason, its choice spectrum will only include novelty products. Such a company will direct a significant amount of its resources to purchase products within the latest trends because it is important to such a firm to maintain an up-to-date status of its inventories and portfolios.
• The habitual and loyal buyer represents a company whose buying behaviour is marked by its preference and loyalty toward its already existing suppliers. For each purchase situation, the company recurrently chooses its known and favourite suppliers because these satisfy the demands of the company fairly well. Since the company has experience with these suppliers, it has certainty that the business relationship will work, and that the products bought will meet the expectations.
• The price conscious buyer represents a company that usually tries to procure the best choice for the lowest possible price. In other words, it is interested in achieving the best value for money. Such a firm usually seeks for low prices, but does not neglect that the product still needs to provide some utility. The company dedicates resources into budgeting activities that will help to carefully plan and monitor its expenses.
• The brand and reputation conscious buyer represent a company that uses the reputation and popularity of a supplier’s brand as the main purchase criterion. Such a company considers only well-known brands in its choice spectrum and, therefore, does not spend much time or research efforts on analyzing the real quality or value behind the offer. Furthermore, since the focus of such a company is set on reputation and the brand, the price is of lower relevance in the final purchase decision.

Based on the afore-described characterization of the B2B decision-making styles, it can be assumed that these decision-making styles can predict companies’ expectations on service quality, price level, price value and price transparency of their suppliers.

It is assumed that the expectation on service quality is positively affected by the following B2B decision-making style: perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer. A negative effect is expected for the following B2B decision-making styles: confused and poorly informed buyer, and fast and careless buyer. No effect on the expectations on service quality is expected for the following B2B decision-making styles: novelty and innovation seeking buyer, habitual and loyal buyer, price conscious buyer, and brand and reputation conscious buyer.

It is assumed that the expectation on the price level is positively affected by the following B2B decision-making style: confused and poorly informed buyer, fast and careless buyer, habitual and loyal buyer, and price conscious buyer. For the following B2B decision-making styles no effect on the expectation on the price level is assumed: perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer, novelty and innovation seeking buyer, and brand and reputation conscious buyer.

Positive effects on the expectation on price value are hypothesised for the following B2B decision-making styles: perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer, habitual and loyal buyer, and price conscious buyer. Negative effects on the expectation on price level can be assumed for the following B2B decision-making style: confused and poorly informed buyer. The following B2B decision-making styles should have no effect on expectation on price level: fast and careless buyer, novelty and innovation seeking buyer, and brand and reputation buyer.

With regard to the expectation on price transparency, positive effects can be assumed for the following B2B decision-making styles: perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer, habitual and brand loyal buyer, and price and conscious buyer. Negative effects on the expectation on price transparency can be hypothesised for the following B2B decision-making style: confused and poorly informed buyer. The following B2B decision-making styles should have no effect on the expectation on price transparency: fast and careless buyer, novelty and innovation seeking buyer, and brand and reputation conscious buyer.

Scale development

Item generation and selection

As described in the theory section, it appears plausible that consumers decision-making styles can be transferred to the decision-making of companies. Against this backdrop, we based the development of the B2B Decision-making Styles Scale on the Consumer Styles Inventory, developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986). The Consumer Styles Inventory consists of 40 items over eight dimensions. We focused only on seven dimensions because the five items of the “recreational, hedonistic consumer” cannot be applied to the B2B context, as buying centres and procurement managers do not purchase goods and services for their own (emotional) benefits but for the (rational) purpose of their employer. We reformulated the remaining 35 items of the afore-mentioned measurement instrument so that they can be applied in a B2B setting by not referring to the individual consumer but to the respective employer of the respondent. For instance, our first item “Procuring very good quality is very important for my company.” derives from Sproles and Kandall’s (1986) original item “Getting very good quality is very important to me.”

To empirically refine the measurement instrument, we applied a principal component analysis with varimax rotation and determined Cronbach’s alpha for the resulting components, using the R packages psych (Revelle, 2022) and psy (Falissard, 2022). We could extract 8 components with an eigenvalue larger than 1 (cf. Table 2).

Table 2

Principal Component Analysis of the initially analyzed 35 Items – Eigenvalues (N = 314)

Component	Eigenvalue	Component	Eigenvalue	Component	Eigenvalue
1	6.85	13	0.81	25	0.42
2	5.33	14	0.73	26	0.41
3	1.88	15	0.69	27	0.39
4	1.57	16	0.68	28	0.34
5	1.38	17	0.64	29	0.32
6	1.29	18	0.62	30	0.31
7	1.20	19	0.59	31	0.30
8	1.07	20	0.54	32	0.28
9	0.99	21	0.51	33	0.26
10	0.96	22	0.49	34	0.25
11	0.91	23	0.46	35	0.22
12	0.85	24	0.45

Table 3 shows the loadings, communalities and Cronbach’s alpha for the items and components. Following Comrey and Lee (1992), loadings (substantially) lower than .55 can be regarded as rather poor. Subsequently, we eliminated six items.

The item “My company usually chooses the more expensive supplier brands.” had to be inverted due to the inverse loadings of the other items of the respective component. Then, when recalculating the loadings without the six eliminated items, mentioned above, the loading of the inverted item dropped substantially to .35 so that this item, too, was eliminated.

Furthermore, component eight with two items was eliminated because of a poor Cronbach’s alpha of .40, following Hair, Page and Brunsveld (2019) who consider a minimum threshold for Cronbach’s alpha at .60. The elimination of this component is also supported by the content of the two respective items, which appear to be inconsistent and might be even considered contradictory (“To get variety, my company buys from different suppliers and chooses different brands.” and “My company purchases as much as possible at discount prices.”).

Table 3

Principal Component Analysis of the Initially Analysed 35 Items – Loadings, Communalities (h2) and Cronbach’s Alpha (N = 314)

After the just described refinement of the B2B Decision-making Styles Scale through principal component analysis, we confirmed the allocation of the items to their respective components by determining their loadings (see Section Item analyses) and tested the adequacy of our measurement instrument by determining Cronbach’s alpha, Dillon-Goldstein’s rho and the average variance extracted (see Section Reliability), using the R package plspm (Sanchez, 2013).

Samples

The B2B Decision-making Styles Scale was applied in an online survey between 30 October 2020 and 7 March 2021. Ad-hoc sampling was used to recruit the participants through online procurement forums, email and social media, mainly LinkedIn. In total, 473 people responded to the questionnaire, with, eventually, 314 fully answered questionnaire resulting. These fully answered questionnaires were used for the analysis. At the start of the questionnaire the company demographics were measured. Sociodemographic variables of the respondents were not collected, as not the individual decision-making styles but the companies’ decision-making styles in procurement processes were evaluated. The headquarters of the participants’ companies are based in Africa (1.91%), Asia (14.33%), Australia and Oceania (.96%), Europe (40.13%), Latin America (23.89%), Middle East (4.78%), and North America (14.01%). 53.19% of the participating companies have an international scope, 22.29% a national scope, 8.92% a regional scope and 15.61% a local scope. The size of the participating companies varied from small to large firms, with 15.61% having 1 to 9, 4.46% 10 to 19, 9.87% 20 to 49, 14.33% 50 to 249 and 55.73% 250 or more employees.

Item analyses

We used R (R Development Core Team, 2017) and the R package plspm (Sanchez, 2013) to determine the loadings of the items on their constructs. The results are presented in Table 4. The majority of the loadings is higher than .70; and no item loads below .60 on its construct. Against this backdrop, the loadings and, therewith, the structure of our measurement instrument can be considered satisfactory.

Table 4

Loadings of the Items on Their Respective Constructs (N = 314)

No.	Constructs and items	Loadings
	Perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer
1	Procuring very good quality is very important for my company.	.79
2	When purchasing products or services, my company attempts to get the very best or perfect choice.	.79
3	My company normally attempts to buy the best overall quality.	.83
4	My company puts special efforts into choosing the very best quality products or services.	.81
5	My company´s standards and expectations for product or service purchases are very high.	.79
6	My company takes the time to carefully purchase the best option.	.75
	Confused and poorly informed buyer
7	Suppliers that do the most advertising are usually very good choices for my company.	.71
8	There are so many suppliers to choose from that the buying agents in my company get often confused.	.83
9	Sometimes it is hard for my company to choose which suppliers to buy from.	.60
10	The more information my company receives about products or services, the harder it is for the buying agent to choose the best option.	.83
11	All the information my company gets on different products or services confuses the buying agents.	.78
	Fast and careless buyer
12	When purchasing products or services, my company does not give so much thought or care.	.72
13	In my company, procurement is done very quickly, buying the first product or service or from the first supplier that seems good enough.	.83
14	My company should plan its procurement more carefully than it usually does.	.61
15	My company buys impulsively.	.73
16	My company makes thoughtless purchases that it later regrets.	.72
	Novelty and innovation seeking buyer
17	My company usually has the very newest products or services available.	.81
18	My company keeps its inventories up-to-date with the upcoming product or service novelties.	.89
19	My company is keen on buying novelty products or services.	.71
	Habitual and loyal buyer
20	My company has favourite suppliers it buys from over and over.	.76
21	Once my company finds a suitable supplier, it holds on to it.	.84
22	My company buys from the same suppliers each time it undergoes purchasing activities.	.68
	Price conscious buyer
23	My company searches carefully to find the best value for the money it spends.	.92
24	My company carefully monitors how much it spends.	.91
	Brand and reputation conscious buyer
25	My company considers that the well-known national and international suppliers are the best to buy from.	.64
26	My company prefers to buy from the best-selling suppliers.	.96

Item parameters

Table 5 shows the descriptive statistics for each item as well as their weight and the corrected item scale correlation for their respective construct.

Table 5

Arithmetic Mean (M), Standard Deviation (SD), Kurtosis (K) and Skewness (S) of the Items, and Weight (W) and Corrected Item Scale Correlation (r) of the Items for Their Respective Constructs (N = 314)

No.	Constructs and items	M	SD	K	S	W	r
	Perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer
1	Procuring very good quality is very important for my company.	5.12	1.02	4.38	-1.24	.17	.76
2	When purchasing products or services, my company attempts to get the very best or perfect choice.	4.90	1.02	4.16	-0.96	.24	.72
3	My company normally attempts to buy the best overall quality.	4.92	1.15	3.79	-1.05	.23	.79
4	My company puts special efforts into choosing the very best quality products or services.	4.89	1.16	3.39	-0.97	.20	.76
5	My company´s standards and expectations for product or service purchases are very high.	4.94	1.04	3.01	-0.79	.22	.73
6	My company takes the time to carefully purchase the best option.	4.90	1.12	3.90	-1.03	.20	.70
	Confused and poorly informed buyer
7	Suppliers that do the most advertising are usually very good choices for my company.	2.87	1.48	2.31	0.48	.27	.62
8	There are so many suppliers to choose from that the buying agents in my company get often confused.	2.71	1.41	2.61	0.61	.32	.76
9	Sometimes it is hard for my company to choose which suppliers to buy from.	3.25	1.32	2.16	-0.03	.16	.53
10	The more information my company receives about products or services, the harder it is for the buying agent to choose the best option.	2.83	1.47	2.26	0.42	.30	.76
11	All the information my company gets on different products or services confuses the buying agents.	2.52	1.33	2.86	0.74	.26	.70
	Fast and careless buyer
12	When purchasing products or services, my company does not give so much thought or care.	1.97	1.25	4.04	1.32	.29	.60
13	In my company, procurement is done very quickly, buying the first product or service or from the first supplier that seems good enough.	2.72	1.54	2.24	0.58	.38	.72
14	My company should plan its procurement more carefully than it usually does.	3.66	1.52	2.02	-0.07	.17	.57
15	My company buys impulsively.	2.16	1.33	3.10	1.03	.24	.65
16	My company makes thoughtless purchases that it later regrets.	2.44	1.43	2.95	0.89	.27	.65
	Novelty and innovation seeking buyer
17	My company usually has the very newest products or services available.	4.08	1.28	2.47	-0.33	.39	.69
18	My company keeps its inventories up-to-date with the upcoming product or service novelties.	4.32	1.39	2.88	-0.72	.53	.76
19	My company is keen on buying novelty products or services.	3.78	1.46	2.21	-0.28	.30	.59
	Habitual and loyal buyer
20	My company has favourite suppliers it buys from over and over.	4.41	1.26	3.10	-0.69	.40	.61
21	Once my company finds a suitable supplier, it holds on to it.	4.63	1.15	3.02	-0.68	.57	.58
22	My company buys from the same suppliers each time it undergoes purchasing activities.	3.79	1.30	2.56	-0.20	.32	.59
	Price conscious buyer
23	My company searches carefully to find the best value for the money it spends.	5.08	1.12	4.58	-1.35	.56	.80
24	My company carefully monitors how much it spends.	5.15	1.10	4.61	-1.40	.53	.78
	Brand and reputation conscious buyer
25	My company considers that the well-known national and international suppliers are the best to buy from.	4.12	1.38	2.57	-0.48	.30	.64
26	My company prefers to buy from the best-selling suppliers.	3.88	1.36	2.30	-0.19	.84	.60

The corssloadings of the Items on the constructs are represented in Table 6.

Table 6

Crossloadings of the Items (N = 314)

No.	Constructs and items	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
	Perfectionistic and quality conscious buyer (1)
1	Procuring very good quality is very important for my company.	.79	-.17	-.22	.34	.25	.35	.17
2	When purchasing products or services, my company attempts to get the very best or perfect choice.	.79	-.16	-.29	.37	.21	.51	.15
3	My company normally attempts to buy the best overall quality.	.83	-.12	-.23	.35	.22	.41	.18
4	My company puts special efforts into choosing the very best quality products or services.	.81	-.13	-.22	.39	.19	.41	.16
5	My company´s standards and expectations for product or service purchases are very high.	.79	-.26	-.32	.31	.13	.37	.11
6	My company takes the time to carefully purchase the best option.	.75	-.12	-.29	.45	.06	.56	.09
	Confused and poorly informed buyer (2)
7	Suppliers that do the most advertising are usually very good choices for my company.	-.08	.71	.48	.20	.19	-.05	.35
8	There are so many suppliers to choose from that the buying agents in my company get often confused.	-.26	.83	.54	.06	.12	-.18	.27
9	Sometimes it is hard for my company to choose which suppliers to buy from.	-.07	.60	.34	.04	.12	-.08	.20
10	The more information my company receives about products or services, the harder it is for the buying agent to choose the best option.	-.12	.83	.50	.15	.12	-.18	.36
11	All the information my company gets on different products or services confuses the buying agents.	-.20	.78	.49	-.02	.07	-.23	.25
	Fast and careless buyer (3)
12	When purchasing products or services, my company does not give so much thought or care.	-.29	.42	.72	-.08	.11	-.35	.14
13	In my company, procurement is done very quickly, buying the first product or service or from the first supplier that seems good enough.	-.25	.55	.83	.03	.12	-.31	.30
14	My company should plan its procurement more carefully than it usually does.	-.14	.41	.61	-.01	.13	-.18	.25
15	My company buys impulsively.	-.20	.38	.73	.00	.05	-.23	.18
16	My company makes thoughtless purchases that it later regrets.	-.30	.52	.72	-.10	.02	-.34	.18
	Novelty and innovation seeking buyer (4)
17	My company usually has the very newest products or services available.	.39	.13	.01	.81	.23	.22	.34
18	My company keeps its inventories up-to-date with the upcoming product or service novelties.	.43	.08	-.07	.89	.20	.36	.30