موانع خرید مشارکت گروه ها در تأمین تجهیزات خدمات بازاریابی

A considerable part of firms' marketing services are supplied by external providers, e.g. advertisement agencies, printing houses, trade fair exhibition builders. Although a large spend category, low involvement of purchasing departments prevails during the procurement decision process. This paper develops a conceptual model of purchasing departments' involvement in marketing service procurement along the dimensions “breadth along process” and “depth of integration”, thus contributing to the measurement of purchasing departments' involvement. Drawing on the findings of a case study, we further propose that the impact of purchasing departments' involvement on procurement success is moderated by procurement complexity, and the duration of the relationship between the purchasing and marketing employees. In addition, barriers to purchasing departments' involvement are conceptualized as lack of skills, lack of motivation, and lack of opportunity.

Companies increasingly rely on externally supplied services, which often account for more than half of the company's spend (Bales and Fearon, 1995, Cox et al., 2005 and Smeltzer and Ogden, 2002). However, research on purchasing services, or more specifically business services (Van der Valk, Wynstra, & Axelsson, 2005), is still limited (Axelsson and Wynstra, 2000, Ellram et al., 2007, Farrell and Schroder, 1996 and Roth et al., 2004). Also in practice, purchasing departments show weak impact on service procurement, particularly regarding marketing services procurement (CAPS Research, 2003b). Marketing spend is one of the major areas with currently low purchasing involvement (O'Reilly, Garrison, & Khalil, 2001) despite purchasing departments' potential contribution to ensure funds are spent properly, improving the quality of the services purchased and saving time and money (Ellram and Birou, 1995, Leenders et al., 2002, Mendez and Pearson, 1995 and Murray, 2001). In this paper, marketing spend is defined as the expenditures on externally provided services related to marketing including, e.g., advertising, communication and merchandizing (Barwise and Styler, 2003, CAPS Research, 2003a and CAPS Research, 2003b). This paper addresses three questions and contributes to the literature by developing propositions in three distinct areas: 1. How to measure the degree of purchasing departments' involvement? Despite various contributions to inter-departmental interaction and collaboration (e.g. Homburg and Jensen, 2007, Kahn and Mentzer, 1998, Schiele, 2005, Schiele and McCue, 2006 and Werr and Pemer, 2007), a consolidated, operational model to describe the degree of involvement is missing. In this paper, a two-dimensional framework is proposed. 2. Which impact has purchasing departments' involvement on procurement success? Various suggestions have been made (e.g. Lonsdale and Watson, 2005 and Schiele, 2005). However, the paper departs from a generalized impact by focusing on moderating variables for the impact of involvement on success. Thus, guidelines for varying importance of involvement are developed. 3. Which barriers prevent purchasing departments' involvement? The paper categorizes a set of barriers in order to develop managerial implications on how to increase the level of involvement when prevalence of barriers is detected. Throughout this paper, evidence of a case study is presented to illustrate the arguments. The case company recognized that large sums were spent in this area, but that purchasing practices were not applied to their full potential. The company realized that only a part of the internal clients for marketing services sought guidance or continuous process input from the purchasing department. Regarding the terms “purchasing” and “marketing”, literature distinguishes between an activity-based perspective and a functional group perspective (Workman, Homburg, & Gruner, 1993). In order to distinguish between the two, we use “purchasing” and “marketing” for the activities and specify the function groups as “purchasing department” and “marketing department”. The remainder of the paper is organized along the three questions. In Section 3, we develop a framework for measuring purchasing departments' involvement. Then, we develop propositions on the impact of purchasing departments' involvement on procurement success. Thereafter, we structure potential barriers. Finally, our discussions are summarized in a theoretical framework enabling empirical testing in future studies. The paper concludes with implications for research and managerial practice.

7.1. Managerial implications From a managerial perspective, we want to emphasize the following key aspects of this study: 1. From literature and case evidence it was highlighted that purchasing departments' involvement can add value, since it can ensure and enhance issues such as quality, timely delivery and costs. As such, managers need to analyze the current level of involvement and develop improvement plans in case the current level is insufficient. 2. Second, if purchasing departments' involvement is relevant for procurement success, how can involvement be measured? This is relevant in order to make an initial assessment and track the success of initiatives for lowering barriers. In our assessment of involvement in the case studied, we identified it to be rather high for Printing Services, but depending on the marketing counterpart, rather varying for Agency Services. 3. Concerning this aspect, the case particularly revolved around the barriers of lack of skills and lack of motivation. Managers need to ensure qualifications and, if appropriate, train employees. Motivational elements can be changed after analyzing current incentive systems and their potential dysfunctionality. Departing from this point, at which the barriers are identified, there is a basis to initiate concrete actions to improve the level of involvement. In finding a solution, Lonsdale and Watson (2005) see the two options of turning to a different spend category first or building an organizational alliance with the power to challenge the internal client. Nevertheless, several barriers might be interrelated and as such must potentially be addressed jointly. In these regards, results concerning the integration of the purchasing department into strategic planning show that competent individuals with suitable skills, positive visibility of the purchasing department's value added and a suitable organizational purchasing department structure are important factors for integration (Smeltzer, 1997). Also hinting at both the need to overcome lack of opportunity and lack of skills, Bales and Fearon (1995) state that two of the main conditions for the involvement of the purchasing department are: Support by the CEO/Top Management and the credibility of the purchasing department to complete the task, again relating to skills and visible value added. This indicates a potential need to set up a larger initiative, tackling a variety of barriers at once.