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Weekly UpdatesStrategic partnerships are becoming more common today for U.S. firms. These new types of partnerships permit firms to compete more effectively in today's global market. Because of these new types of strategies, buyers and sellers are moving from the traditional arms'-length, adversarial relationships to those based on communication and cooperation.
The movement toward cooperative relationships between business buyers and sellers has led to the reduction in the number of suppliers for some firms. With fewer suppliers being considered, the task of supplier selection becomes increasingly more important. This importance is magnified because the purchasing agent has fewer alternatives when a supplier cannot adequately perform its function. Consequently, the agent must depend more on the reliability and credibility of each individual supplier. However, selection criteria for suppliers extend beyond just these two supplier attributes. Therefore, the firms' supplier selection criteria are critical elements for marketers to understand.
Studies over the years have addressed a variety of criteria that are important in supplier selection (e.g. Brown et al., 1993; Cameron and Shipley, 1985; Spekman, 1988). Much of the business research has focused on the behaviors and traits of purchasing managers (Brown et al., 1993). With more women entering fields that have been traditionally male (such as industrial purchasing), gender may also have an impact on the weighting of supplier selection criteria. An important but often overlooked aspect to study is the effect of gender on purchasing managers' behaviors. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there are any differences in the weighting of selection criteria between male and female purchasing personnel. If differences are found, gender could be a meaningful basis for business market segmentation.
This article presents a review of the literature with an emphasis on supplier selection criteria and gender followed by the research methodology and results. A general discussion of the results leads to managerial implications and recommendations which are derived from the results. We conclude with a discussion of limitations of the study and future research.
Background
Supplier Selection Criteria
When a decision to purchase a product is made, the members of the buying center establish a set of evaluation criteria that can be used to compare potential sources (Gregory, 1986). The purpose of supplier selection is to determine the optimal supplier who offers the best all-around package of product and service for the customer.
Previous studies have identified several key factors important in supplier selection. Key criteria used by buyers include: quality, on-time delivery, price, and flexibility (Verma and Pullman, 1998). Other recent studies indicate the relative importance of supplier selection criteria has changed over the last few years. Wilson (1994) determined that quality has increased in importance, price is relatively less important today, delivery is somewhat less important, and service is somewhat more important today. She suggested that these changes are due to the changing relationships between buyers and sellers.
Additionally, most studies have found that price plays an increasingly lesser role in supplier selection (Choi and Hartley, 1996; Gustin et al., 1997; Lambert et al., 1997). As suggested by Doney and Cannon (1997), trust in the supplier firm and trust in the salesperson have become increasingly important. Spekman (1988) developed a taxonomy of sources of information that divided the information into Personal and Impersonal. Five factors emerged from supplier/product attributes which included product, service, experience, price, and availability.
Determining how a purchasing agent selects suppliers extends beyond the traditional selection criteria. Sourcing preference orientation of a firm (single vs. multiple) has been shown to have an effect on the supplier selection criteria (Swift, 1995). Swift's study found that dependability and price were rated significantly different between individuals who have a preference for single sourcing and those who have a preference for multiple sourcing. In addition to sourcing preference, other personal or organizational factors may have an impact on supplier selection criteria. As suggested by Shapiro and Bonoma (1984), companies could segment their markets based on preferred selection criteria.
Gender
In the past few years, the number of women in the job market has dramatically increased, with more than 60% of married women employed outside the home (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999). Women have been encouraged to seek positions in industries that have traditionally been male-dominated. In fact, women comprise 51.4% of the nonretail salesforce (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999), which is an increase from merely 23% of the nonretail sales force less than a decade ago (U.S. Department of Labor, 1990).
Consistent with the increasing number of women employed in traditionally male-dominated positions, reports in the purchasing area suggest that an increased percentage of women are employed in purchasing (Reichard, 1991). However, early statistics indicated that women were paid less and were therefore less satisfied with pay and their jobs (Lumpkin and Tudor, 1990). The salary gap has gradually narrowed. Female purchasing agents earned salaries equivalent to 68.8% of their male counterparts in 1983. The percentage increased to 71.2% in 1996 (Morgan, 1996). One might assume that women are typically still less satisfied with their purchasing jobs because they are still under-compensated relative to the men employed in similar positions. People who are dissatisfied frequently perform their jobs differently than those who are satisfied (Churchill et al., 2000). This is a key purpose for investigating gender differences in supplier selection criteria.
Another obvious reason for investigating gender is inconsistencies in previous studies on gender differences. Most of the studies on gender in business markets have been in the sales arena. Sayre et al. (1991) found that females had higher ethical standards than males among salespeople. Other studies have determined that compared to men, female salespeople were more reluctant to use persuasive skills to successfully close a sale (Linkemer, 1989), had lower levels of role conflict (Schul and Wren, 1992; Siguaw and Honeycutt Jr., 1995), tend to avoid risk (Coiner et al., 1995), and had lower levels of job satisfaction (Kennedy and Lawton, 1992). No differences were found in motivational perception (Dubinsky et al., 1993), job satisfaction (Dubinsky et al., 1993), or socialization (Kennedy and Lawton, 1992).
Not many studies have addressed gender differences in purchasing managers. One study found that purchasing managers evaluated male salespeople more favorable than female salespeople (Dion et al., 1997), suggesting that gender bias still exists in business selling. Palmer and Bejou (1995) noted that gender plays an important role in the development of buyer/seller relationships because women tend to be more interpersonally oriented than men. Women focus more on getting to know the trading partners prior to doing business with them.
Another study on purchasing managers (Lumpkin and Tudor, 1990) found significant differences between female and male purchasing managers. Female purchasing managers were found to have more negative attitudes toward salary, tendency to leave, treatment by sales people, promotional opportunities, company policies, and satisfaction toward supervisor and co-workers.
Significant differences have been found between genders in salesperson behaviors and in their roles as purchasing managers. Differences have also been found in the evaluation criteria for men and women (Dion et al., 1997). The study revealed that buyers evaluate the overall performance of salespeople the same for both genders. However, women were rated lower on professionalism, number of orders received from buyers, and customer service (Dion et al., 1997). These differences may have a critical impact on the selection criteria purchasing managers use to determine suppliers. Based on these previous findings, the hypothesis of this exploratory study is as follows:
[H.sub.1]: Gender has a significant impact on the supplier selection criteria of purchasing managers.
Methodology
The subjects in this study were the membership of the National Association of Purchasing Management (NAPM), whose total membership exceeds 37,000. A sample of 2,000 purchasing managers was randomly drawn from across three SIC codes: chemical and allied products (SIC 28), electrical and electronic equipment (SIC 36), and transportation equipment (SIC 37). These industries were selected because another part of the study concerned single sourcing and these SIC codes have been shown to use single sourcing.
A questionnaire was developed and pretested with a chapter of NAPM located in a major metropolitan area. Based on these results, the questionnaire was refined for the primary study. A self-administered questionnaire was then mailed to 2,000 purchasing managers. A second copy of the questionnaire was mailed ten days later. Eight hundred and six questionnaires were returned for an initial response rate of 40.3%. Seven hundred and seventy-four usable responses (those who had identified gender) were returned, yielding an effective response rate of 38.7%.
Comparisons were made between respondents to the first mailing and those to the second mailing, as suggested by Armstrong and Overton (1977), to determine if any nonresponse bias existed. Because categorical data were used, the Kolgomorov Smirnov test was used to determine if the two mailings were drawn from the same or similar populations. Using a two-tailed probability test, no significant differences were found between the two groups of respondents on the following variables: SIC code, annual sales volume of the company, number of company employees, education level, gender, marital status, age and income. Nonresponse bias does not appear to be a factor.
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