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The independent variable in this survey was gender, specifically, whether the purchasing manager was male or female. The assumption of the study was that the purchasing manager's gender may have an impact on the weighting of the importance of supplier selection criteria that were used. Twenty-four percent, 187 of the total 774 respondents, were female purchasing managers.
The dependent measures were a set of supplier attributes that are considered important during the supplier selection phase of the decision process. After reviewing several scales used in measuring supplier selection criteria, a scale used by Spekman (1988) was selected to serve as the foundation for this study. The Spekman scale contained 31 items to measure five factors: Product, Service, Experience, Price, and Availability. Churchill's (1979) scale purification procedure was followed for the pretest. Ten items were eliminated in the purification process, resulting in a 21-item scale. Respondents were asked to indicate the importance they place on a group of attributes during the supplier selection decision. Because the firms were from several different industries, no specific product or product group was identified. A seven point Likert scale was used with 7 = very important and 1 = not at all important.
Results
As in Spekman's study (1988), principal-components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to help understand the dimensions of the scale. Five factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 were extracted, which accounted for 54.7% of the variance of the data. Factor loadings, eigenvalues, and cumulative variance are found in Table 1. The reliability for the overall scale was .8712. The results of the gender differences for these factors and the individual supplier attributes are found in Table 2.
The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) for the five factors, using averaged factor scored, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) for the individual supplier attributes. These techniques were used so that mean differences between male's and female's important supplier attributes could be determined while controlling for the following variables: education, age, income, marital status, SIC code and annual sales of the company based on the results of a Kolgomorov-Smirnov nonparametric test. Significant differences were found between male and female purchasing managers on the following factors: education (z=3.15, p[less than].00), age (z=1.58, p=.0l). income (z=4.79, p[less than].00), and marital status (z=3.201, p[less than].00). These variables were controlled due to their potential of confounding effects on gender differences.
Individual ANCOVAs were conducted on the selection criteria. Table 2 shows that two of the composite criteria, Support and Dependability, were significantly different between male and female purchasing managers and that six individual attributes within these two composite criteria were also significantly different (p=05).
The multivariate F-test for Support was 6.47, at .01 level of significance. The univariate F-test shows that Breadth of Product Line, Geographic Proximity, and Warranties were weighted significantly differently between male and female purchasing managers, while Vendor's Image and Supplier's Financial Condition were not.
The multivariate F-test for Dependability was 6.75 at .01 level of significance. The univariate F-test shows that Ability to Keep Delivery Promise, Technical Support Available, and Service Response Time, were weighted significantly differently between male and female purchasing managers while Reliability of Product was not.
Discussion
Research indicates that women are increasingly entering the field of purchasing. To date, very little research has been conducted to investigate whether the criteria females use to select suppliers are different from those used by males. This article reports a study designed to address the potentially important issue of whether gender differences in supplier selection criteria may exist. Results indicate that few differences exist, specifically with regard to dependability and the provision of support.
The results from MANCOVA indicate that Support and Dependability are composite criteria that differ between male and female purchasing managers. That is, female purchasing managers place a higher level of importance on Support and Dependability than do male purchasing managers.
Within the Support criterion, Breadth of Product Line was a significant attribute. Females believe that the number of lines offered by the supplier is more important in the purchase decision.
Geographic Proximity was a significant attribute. Females place more importance than males on Geographic Proximity in supplier selection than do males.
Warranty Availability is also a significant attribute. Women place more importance on the warranties that are offered by the supplier than their male counterparts.
Within the Dependability criterion, Ability to Keep Delivery Promise was a significant attribute. The guarantees offered by suppliers regarding deliveries could be extremely important to the female purchasing manager. If the product is not delivered when scheduled, the company's own production could be threatened. This would therefore impact the performance of the purchasing managers.
Technical Support Available was a significant attribute. Women purchasing managers believe that technical support from the supplier is more important than men do.
Service Response Time was also a significant attribute. The ability of the supplier to provide a rapid response to service calls was more important to women than to men. Again, with less experience in purchasing, women purchasing managers may want the security of knowing that they will be able to quickly get the supplier to respond if problems with the product or equipment do arise.
The study found that women placed a higher importance level on two of five composite measures of supplier selection criteria--Support and Dependability. Within these two composite criteria, seven of nine attributes were considered significantly more important by women than by men. Women believe Breadth of Product Line, Geographic Proximity, Warranties, Ability to Keep Delivery Promise, Technical Support Available, and Service Response Time to be significantly more important than do men. These findings will permit marketing managers to develop specific marketing efforts for female purchasing managers. In some cases, purchasing departments may develop some ideas for additional training that could be considered for female purchasing managers. Other purchasing departments may consider that the relationship-oriented attributes are more salient and therefore consider additional training for male purchasing managers.
Managerial Implications and Recommendations
The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences in the weighting of supplier selection criteria between male and female purchasing managers. The study confirms the fact that marketers need to be aware that female purchasing managers need to be treated differently than male purchasing managers on several attributes. Specific attention should focus on dependability and providing support.
The findings of this study have implications for industrial marketing managers particularly as they apply to industrial market segmentation. Ford (1984) has suggested the importance of relationships and relationship management in industrial markets. As postulated by Laughlin and Taylor (1991), the goal of industrial segmentation is not to look for homogeneous markets, but rather to look for homogeneous responses to marketing stimuli. An analysis of industrial market segmentation models identified both macrosegmentation (segmentation on obvious organizational characteristics) and microsegmentation (segmenting on the decision-making units, including the personal characteristics of the decision maker) (Plank, 1985). That study also identified personal characteristics as the fifth level of nested segmentation.
Marketers can use the gender of the purchasing manager as a micro-segmentation variable, as gender of the purchasing manager could affect the strategies used by the marketers. Industrial marketers can more effectively direct their marketing efforts by understanding differences in the weighting of selection criteria between male and female purchasing managers.
Women place more emphasis on Support and Dependability. When dealing with female purchasing managers, marketers should emphasize their ability to service the customer, as women place a great deal of emphasis on this. Explaining the protection offered by the warranty could also be important. In addition, the dependability of the product should be stressed with female purchasing managers. The technical support that can be offered as well as the supplier's ability to respond to service calls will be more important to female purchasing managers.
Purchasing departments can also benefit from the findings of this study. Female purchasing managers placed significantly more emphasis on seven of twenty-one individual attributes than did male purchasing managers. Based on the findings, purchasing departments may need to conduct training sessions for female purchasing managers, with emphasis on some of the differences. They may also want to conduct additional relationship-oriented training for male purchasing managers. Joint training can help male and female purchasing managers understand why more emphasis is placed on selected criteria by the other gender.
The increasing number of women entering the field of purchasing magnifies the importance of understanding whether they weight supplier selection criteria differently than men. The fact that women are less satisfied with their pay and their jobs (Lump-kin and Tudor, 1990) may have an impact on attributes that they consider important. However, equally important is the fact that some studies have found that women are believed to be more interpersonally oriented (Palmer and Bejou, 1995) and more nurturing (Gilligan, 1986) than men. This might lead one to believe that the relationship with the supplier is more important to women than to men. The difference was evidenced in this study with the greater importance placed by female purchasing managers on Support and Dependability.
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