Embedded Influence Patterns in Organizational Buying Systems

The organizational buying system concept is introduced as an organizing framework for exploring the patterned, repeated interactions that characterize ongoing purchasing processes. Applying a structural perspective to the study of influence, the authors assert that organizational actors derive influence from the position they occupy within the buying system. An analysis of a 171-member organizational network demonstrates that individual influence in organizational buying is derived from properties of both the formal and the informal structures.