Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 2018

Vol. 38, No. 1, 123–143, https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2018.1425881

Personal selling and the purchasing function: where do we go from here?

Bert Paesbrugghea, Arun Sharmab, Deva Rangarajanc* and Niladri Syamd
a

IESEG efense, 92044, Paris, France; bMiami School of Business, University of Miami,
School of Management, 1 Parvis de La D

P.O. Box 248027, Coral Gables, FL 33124-6520, USA; cMiller College of Business, Ball State University, 2000W University Avenue,
Muncie, IN 47306, USA; dTrulaske College of Business, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
(Received 8 July 2017; accepted 6 January 2018)

The business-to-business selling function has changed over the years, with more informed and demanding buyers,
prompting firms to move toward a more consultative, solution-selling approach. While these changes have been the focus
of extensive research in the personal selling and sales management domain, the customer side of the interaction dyad
requires more examination. Even within the context of the customer side, insufficient attention has been paid to the
purchasing function in business-to-business (B2B) selling research. Given the increased importance in customer
organizations of the purchasing function, this article presents a literature review that highlights the purchasing function’s
personal selling and sales management needs and argues that, as the purchasing function becomes more important and its
needs evolve, personal selling and sales strategies also need to evolve. The article highlights areas for future research in
this domain.
Keywords: purchasing function; purchasing maturity; sales strategies

The selling function is becoming more important for
firms; at the same time, the selling function is under stress
from decreased effectiveness and increasing costs (Sheth,
Sisodia, and Sharma 2000; Grewal et al. 2009; Sheth and
Sisodia 2014). One of the reasons for the decreased effec-
tiveness of personal selling may be a lack of sufficient
attention and research on the “customer side” of personal
selling and sales management (Williams and Plouffe
2007). We propose that one area within the customer side
that requires additional research attention is the purchas-
ing function. Research suggests that the purchasing func-
tion is increasingly becoming a critical resource for
buying firms (Tassabehji and Moorhouse 2008; Sheth,
Sharma, and Iyer 2009), and purchasing departments are
evolving to become more strategic rather than transac-
tional (T€oyt€ari, Rajala, and Brashear 2015).
Remarkably, few sales researchers have addressed the
implications of evolving purchasing function needs and
the empowerment of procurement. Paesbrugghe et al.
(2017) found that a review of the existing selling and sales
management literature yielded few studies that focus on
how selling and sales strategies need to be adapted to
keep up with the changing needs of the purchasing func-
tion. In addition, research attention is lacking in the area
of competitiveness of sourcing journey efficiency, a
domain of the purchasing function. The role of the pur-
chasing function has been enhanced in the wake of buyer
empowerment (Flint, Blocker, and Boutin 2011) and an
increased strategic focus by firms on procurement (Rust,
Moorman, and Dickson 2002). In addition, the procure-
ment function itself should be seen as a strategic function
(Tassabehji and Moorhouse 2008), requiring research on
shifting sales strategies that range from a transactional to
a strategic orientation. Today, business customers are
empowered by information that is increasingly accessible
via digital marketing channels, such as websites and social
media (Karjaluoto and Ulkuniemi 2015). Fueled by new
waves of digitalization, buyer–seller relationships are rap-
idly changing (Lamberton and Stephen 2016) and increas-
ingly driven by the emerging role of social media in
business-to-business (B2B) contexts, further contributing
to new purchasing strategies (Kein€anen and Kuivalainen
2015). A lack of research and understanding about the
needs of the purchasing function leads to a reduction in
the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales function.
Research has suggested that salespeople’s perception of
the purchasing function is inaccurate, and that the pur-
chasing function calls for a more nuanced approach
(based on the stages of purchasing function evolution)
than salespeople provide (Paesbrugghe et al. 2017).
Purpose
Our research focused on the interaction of personal selling
and sales management of the supplier organization and the
purchasing function on the customer’s side as this area has

*Corresponding author. Email: drangarajan@bsu.edu

Ó 2018 Pi Sigma Epsilon National Educational Foundation

124 B. Paesbrugghe et al.
not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. In exam-
ining the interaction of sales strategies and the purchasing
function, we found two areas of theoretical interest. First,
we examined the current and emerging needs of the pur-
chasing function and whether – as the purchasing function
is dynamic – sales strategies and sales research are
addressing the purchasing function’s evolving needs. The
first research question allowed us to identify current gaps
in the literature. Second, after recognizing those gaps in
the literature, we considered the important research areas
involving the intersection of personal selling and sales
management and the purchasing function. We expect
additional research on the purchasing function to enhance
the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales function. To
address the research questions, we developed a framework
for our research, which we provide in Figure 1. In this
figure, we also provide the research question, our research
approach and the associated sections in the manuscript,
and finally our conclusions.
We first examined the research question on the extant
and emerging needs of the purchasing function and whether
sales strategies and sales research are addressing the evolv-
ing needs of the purchasing function. We reported on the
literature in the purchasing area that discusses the evolving
needs of this function (Section 1). We then examined the
literature on the intersection of personal selling and sales
management and the purchasing function (Section 2).
Next, we sampled the literature to determine whether the
emerging research areas in purchasing are also being exam-
ined in personal selling and sales management (Section 2).
Figure 1. Research questions, research approach and conclusions.
After addressing the first research question, we focused on
the second research area and identified important areas of
research at the intersection of personal selling and sales
management and the purchasing function. We report on an
exploratory study in which we collected data from personal
selling and sales management researchers to examine the
suggested areas of future research (Section 3). We then
explored the gaps between personal selling and sales man-
agement research and emerging research topics in purchas-
ing and provided additional directions for future research
(Section 3). Finally, we conclude our research with a dis-
cussion of its implications (Section 4).
Section 1: Evolving purchasing function needs
This article focuses on the intersection of personal selling
and sales management and the purchasing function. While
sales researchers are deeply aware of the research associ-
ated with personal selling and sales management, limited
attention is paid to the purchasing function and the evolv-
ing needs of the purchasing function. This section addresses
two distinct topics in that regard. First, we provide an over-
view of the purchasing function. Second, we provide a syn-
opsis of the emerging research issues in purchasing.
Two major themes emerged in our examination of
purchasing function research. The first theme is that the
purchasing function is complex and evolving. In this
regard, we start the section by discussing the role/maturity
of purchasing in firms and demonstrate that the role of
purchasing is changing from an operational orientation to
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
a strategic orientation. We then discuss how purchasing
strategies are situational. Specifically, different purchas-
ing tasks favor different purchasing goals and strategies.
We follow this discussion by examining the role that pur-
chasing has in the buying center and how this role is dis-
tinct. Finally, we discuss the alignment of buyer–seller
relationships in the purchasing context and emerging
areas of research in purchasing.
Role/maturity of the purchasing function
To understand the rapid evolution of the purchasing func-
tion, Reck and Long (1988) developed the following clas-
sification scheme to define the four stages of purchasing
maturity or professionalism at a firm:
 Passive, with a focus on price and service-level
agreement
 Independent, with a focus on cost
 Supportive, with a focus on solutions and
innovations
 Integrative, with a focus on strategy
Den Butter and Linse (2008) found that companies are
increasingly studying the long-term advantages of
empowering the procurement function. However, it is dif-
ficult to estimate the long-term savings or advantages that
derive from strategic decisions made by the purchasing
function. Instead, it remains easier for top management to
calculate the purchasing department’s contribution by its
short-term price or cost reductions. Yet procurement
increasingly is receiving a higher strategic role within the
buying company (Rust, Moorman, and Dickson 2002),
and the purchasing function is evolving to become more
strategic (e.g., T€ oyt€ari, Rajala,, and Brashear 2015).
Sheth, Sharma, and Iyer (2009) state that purchasing is
rapidly becoming a critical resource for the buying firm,
which has led to the empowerment of business-to-busi-
ness purchasers (Flint, Blocker, and Boutin 2011).
As a result, the purchasing function is gradually travers-
ing the four steps of the purchasing maturity ladder, mov-
ing from a price focus to a strategic focus (Reck and Long
1988; Shiele 2007). Despite the ongoing power shift toward
the purchasing function (Cousins, Lawson, and Squire
2006), the buyer–seller literature is still very sparse on the
evolution of the purchasing function within the customer’s
buying center, as we will discuss in subsequent sections.
Purchasing situations and strategies
To better understand the impact of the buying situation on
the purchasing function’s decision making, we highlight
Kraljic’s purchasing portfolio matrix (Kraljic 1983). The
two-by-two matrix categorizes buying contexts according to
the purchased good or service’s profit impact and supply
125
risk, which impacts the strategy of the purchasing function.
The profit and supply risk axes construct the following four
purchased item quadrants: leverage, strategic, routine, and
bottleneck products/services. Leverage products have a high
profit impact but a low supply risk and a purchasing strategy
of increasing the level of competition among suppliers
because of available alternatives. Strategic products can only
be sourced by a small set of suppliers, and they have a tre-
mendous impact on production and delivery costs. Here, the
purchasing strategy is to collaborate or partner with the sup-
plier. Routine products are characterized by low supply and
low financial impact risks. The supplier’s strategy is to
reduce the supplier base to simplify the buying process.
Finally, bottleneck products have a relatively smaller influ-
ence on company financials but are associated with a higher-
than-average supply risk. The purchasing function typically
searches continuously for alternatives to reduce supplier
dependency. The Kraljic matrix highlights that the purchas-
ing function needs are based on the buying situation and is
also widely used by researchers (Cani€els and Gelderman
2005) and practitioners (e.g., Lamming, Caldwell, and Phil-
lips 2001; Gelderman and Van Weele 2003).
The purchasing function and the buying center
The differential needs of buying center members and spe-
cific personal selling and sales strategies to cater to the
needs of each buying center have been highlighted by
researchers for more than four decades (e.g., Sheth 1973;
Macdonald, Kleinaltenkamp and Wilson 2016). Research
has consistently suggested that a congruence of buyer
needs and sales firm offerings is critical for personal sell-
ing and sales management success (T€ollner, Blut, and
Holzm€uller 2011; Bradford et al. 2010; Hansen et al.
2011). Some research exemplars suggest that buying cen-
ter needs are distinct and that buying center composition
changes according to the purchasing situation (Johnston
and Bonoma 1981; T€ollner, Blut, and Holzm€uller 2011).
Additional research suggests that selling teams or
embedded teams may be required to cater to different pur-
chasing needs (Spekman and Johnston 1986; Moon and
Armstrong 1994; Bradford et al. 2010). At the same time,
the needs may be more unique in cross-cultural settings
(Hansen et al. 2011). The research highlights the need to
cater to the requirements of each buying center member.
The needs of the purchasing function are distinct, and
research exists that highlights the distinctiveness. The pur-
chasing function introduces criteria that typically are not
addressed by other functions, such as cost and risk perspec-
tives (Bals, Hartmann, and Ritter 2009); contracts, process
outcomes, contractual milestones, risk management, and
monitoring (Tate et al. 2010); formulation of policies and
establishing preferred supplier agreements (Pemer, Werr,
and Bianchi 2014); and focus on function complexity (Jen-
nings and Plank 1995). MacDonald, Kleinaltenkamp, and
126 B. Paesbrugghe et al.
Wilson (2016) demonstrated that purchasing is more exter-
nally oriented in evaluating complex solutions and places
more emphasis on managing external stakeholders. The pur-
chasing function pays more attention to supplier resources
and value-in-use auditing by the customer. Finally, the criti-
cality of the purchasing function strongly depends on the
buying situation. Previous research has reported the impor-
tance of the purchasing function in different buying situa-
tions, such as those involving routine purchases or strategic
purchases (Reck and Long 1988). Existing research suggests
that the purchasing function adopts different criteria from
other functions in the buying process and that those criteria
in turn need to be reflected in different sales strategies. This
is because purchasing and sales are two parts of a dyad that
need to work with each other.
Alignment of buyer–seller relationships in purchasing
In contrast to collaborative buyer–seller relationships, the
purchasing function also has a dark side. Anderson and Jap
(2005) described this dark side within close buyer–seller
relationships as relationships that appear to be very stable
but that are actually most vulnerable to failure and destruc-
tion. The authors suggested that selling companies should
not take close business relationships with their buying
counterparts for granted. Villena, Revilla, and Choi (2011)
also studied this dark side phenomenon in collaborative
buyer–seller relationships and looked at the influence that
strengthening social capital at the interorganizational level
had. Their results indicate that going beyond maximization
levels of social capital will alter the positive into a negative
impact on buyer performance. Likewise, Rossetti and Choi
(2005) found that the purchaser dark side wants to sell their
company as a long-term collaborative partnering company
while installing exit barriers and taking advantage of short-
term driven negotiations. Finally, in examining the Kraljic
(1983) matrix, we found that, despite close relationships,
the purchasing function attempts to increase competition in
leverage products and reduce the number of suppliers for
routine products and seeks alternatives for bottleneck prod-
ucts. Only in the case of strategic products does the pur-
chasing function seek partnerships.
Emerging areas of research in purchasing
In this section, we examine the shift in purchasing function
and its impact on personal selling and sales management
strategies. We first summarize the work by Spina et al.
(2013) and Esposito and Passaro (2013). Spina et al. (2013)
examined the literature in purchasing and highlighted how
disruptive changes in technology and market settings have
made way for new, emerging research topics in the purchas-
ing domain. Furthermore, Spina et al. (2013) examined
trends in the purchasing function and highlighted how these
trends have affected the relationship between the purchasing
function and their suppliers. In our selection, we used data
on publications by topics provided by Spina et al. (2013) to
create two groups. The first group of traditional topics were
identified by the rank order of total number of articles pub-
lished during 2002–2003 that were relevant to personal sell-
ing and sales management (e.g., supply network
configurations was excluded). We identified eight topics that
had ten or more articles. The second group of emerging/
trending topics were identified by the total number of articles
published during 2009–2010 that were relevant to personal
selling and sales management. Of the top ten topics in 2009–
2010, four were not in the topics identified as traditional
topics and were classified as emerging topics. An overview
of the traditional and emerging/trending purchasing topics
(ordered by number of articles published in the work by
Spina et al. [2013]) are presented in Table 1.
In the first column of Table 1, we present the tradi-
tional research topics – cost; partnership, quality, innova-
tion, outsourcing; reverse marketing; e-purchasing; and
trust. To find additional support for the topics, a review of
the literature yielded the work of Esposito and Pasaro
(2013), which is an editorial on 124 conference papers,
that identified emerging/trending topics. We used both
research articles and in the second column of Table 1, we
combined the emerging/trending research topics that we
classified through Spina et al. (2013) and those suggested
by Esposito and Passaro (2013). These are local/global/
globalization; risk management; green and sustainability
management; contract management; ethics and corporate
social responsibility; innovation; knowledge and HR
(human resources) management; and disaster manage-
ment. The reason that innovation is in both columns is
that the data from the two authors put it in both columns.
The motive for the classification and the table is two-
fold. First, the classification provides a summary of research
Table 1. Important research topics in purchasing literature.
Traditional research
focus (SP 2013)* Emerging/trending topics
Cost (2); partnership (1); Local/global/globalization (SP
quality (9); innovation (4); 2013; EP 2013); risk
outsourcing (3); reverse management (SP 2013; EP
marketing (5); e-purchasing; 2013); green and
trust (6) sustainability management
(SP 2013; EP 2013); contract
management (SP 2013);
ethics and corporate social
responsibility (EP 2013);
innovation (EP 2013);
knowledge and HR
management (EP 2013); and
disaster management (EP
2013).
Note: SP 2013 D Spina et al. (2013); EP 2013 D Esposito and Passaro
(2013). HR D human resources. Number in parentheses in Traditional
research focus (SP 2013) is ranking in 2009–2010.
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
in the area and enhances our understanding of the needs of
the purchasing function. Second, the classification allows us
to examine the areas that have not received sufficient
research attention by examining the research by sales
researchers in these areas. In summary, these research topics
are all in line with further advancing the purchasing side of
buyer–seller relationships. These topics indicate that the pur-
chasing literature is increasingly focusing on factors that
enhance the long-term strategic role of the purchasing
function.
Second, we focused on published research since 2011.
The time frame of 2011–2017 was chosen to identify areas of
the purchasing literature; moreover, Spina et al. (2013) had
already provided data on more than 1,000 peer-reviewed
articles in purchasing literature published before 2011. There-
fore, we chose the period after 2011 to capture the research lit-
erature that Spina et al. (2013) did not include. To select the
keywords, we followed the guidelines on database searches
by Higgins and Green (2011), who state that keyword
searches should encompass the whole meaning of the search
term, including different U.K. and U.S. English spellings of
the keyword (e.g., behavior and behaviour), and the plural
form of the keyword. For this search, we used the following
four keywords that capture what the purchasing literature
includes on the sales side: Sales, Selling, Supplier, and Seller
(based on the research of Paesbrugghe et al. 2017).
We initially chose two top journals in purchasing – the
Journal of Supply Chain Management and the Journal of
Purchasing and Supply Management. As a result, this
search in Web of Science yielded 149 research articles. In
our examination of the 149 articles published after 2011
and not included by Esposito and Passaro (2013) and
Spina et al. (2013), we did not find any new emerging/
trending research topic with substantial interest (in addi-
tion to those listed in Table 1) at the intersection of pur-
chasing and personal selling and sales management.
Section 2: Personal selling, sales management, and the
purchasing function
As the purchasing function evolves, personal selling and
sales management need to evolve to match the needs. The
sales function should mirror the purchasing function to
enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales strategies.
In this section, we review the literature in personal selling
and sales management in two broad areas. First, we review
the literature at the interaction of personal selling and sales
research and the purchasing function. Second, we examine
the sales research that had addressed the traditional and
emerging/trending areas of purchasing research.
Sales research on the purchasing function
We conducted an in-depth analysis of the business-to-
business buying/selling literature to examine the contexts
127
in which the purchasing function was studied. The results
had implications for personal selling and sales strategy.
Paesbrugghe et al. (2017) only found thirty-three articles
between 2000 and 2015 that sampled personnel from the
purchasing function. Of these, only ten articles addressed
the buying needs of the purchasing function. Our purpose
was to go beyond the work of Paesbrugghe et al. (2017),
and to achieve this goal, we surveyed buyer–seller
research literature published between 1980 and 2017. In
this exhaustive approach, we again used the Higgins and
Green (2011) guidelines on database searches. Our sample
was derived from the Web of Science database by select-
ing the keywords as topics, which only yields articles with
this keyword in the title or abstract. In the next round of
reviewing these articles, two authors scanned the
whole article to determine whether it matched one or
more of the topics listed in Table 1. The following key-
words led to the initial sample of 329 research articles:
buyer–seller relationship; buying behavior; relationship
marketing in business-to-business; industrial marketing;
sales approach; sales strategy; and any of the topics in
purchasing listed in Table 1. The journal list for this
examination was derived from the selection of top-tier
marketing and sales journals, in keeping with similar pre-
vious research in the sales domain (Williams and Plouffe
2007). The marketing and sales journals and the number
of articles (in parentheses) that were identified are Indus-
trial Marketing Management (109), Journal of Business
& Industrial Marketing (54), Psychology and Marketing
(37), Marketing Science (30), Journal of Retailing (25),
Journal of Marketing (24), International Journal of
Research in Marketing (12), Journal of Personal Selling
& Sales Management (10), Journal of Marketing
Research (9), Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sci-
ence (8), Journal of Consumer Research (4), Marketing
Letters (5), and Journal of Applied Psychology (2). One
of the reasons for the small number of articles identified is
the inclusion of purchasing function terms.
After a first scan by two researchers of this set of 329
research articles, 150 research articles were eliminated
because they did not fit our research purpose. To test the
interchangeability of the two researchers, we used the per-
centage method by Shortell and Zajac (1990). This analy-
sis showed an agreement of 96.6% on the selection of
articles, which is in the acceptable range for interrater reli-
ability and agreement (Shortell and Zajac 1990). There
were three main reasons for not including an article – its
focus was on consumer behavior (e.g., Chen and Yang
2007; Akçura, G€on€ ul, and Petrova 2004); it examined
methodology issues (e.g., Easton 2010; Erdem 1996); or it
was not related to our interests (e.g., Ferguson 1996). Of
the remaining 179 research articles, 141 are empirical/
case studies and 38 are conceptual. In examining the
implications for purchasing, only twenty-one articles sam-
pled the purchasing function as the focal group of
128 B. Paesbrugghe et al.
attention and addressed the specific needs of the purchas-
ing function. Of these, only twelve articles were identified
that address the purchasing function needs. In addition,
we were not able to identify articles that focused on the
purchasing function but did not sample purchasing execu-
tives. The details are presented in Table 2.
In the following paragraphs, we first discuss the seven
articles that only sample the purchasing function to derive
implications for the sales function. The remaining five
articles from Table 2, discussed later, sampled other func-
tions from the buying firm, and therefore the implications
for the purchasing function may not be strong.
Wood et al. (2014) tested the impact of three sales strate-
gies – product-, solution-, and provocation-based – on the
purchasing function, and found that not all strategies are
equally successful in developing relationships. First, from a
purchaser’s perspective, the provocation-based sales
approach is not effective because it intensifies conflict and
lowers the perception of salesperson trustworthiness. Second,
their results indicated that purchasers consider salespeople
who use a solution-based sales approach more trustworthy.
Finally, salespeople who opt for a product-based sales strat-
egy are perceived as less trustworthy and increase the pur-
chaser’s perceptions of conflict with the salesperson. Guenzi,
De Luca, and Spiro (2016) found that sales orientation and
adaptive selling approach should be based on the importance
the customer places on the purchase.
For buying situations, Bunn (1993) suggested different
sales approaches based on four situational traits: purchase
importance, task uncertainty, extensiveness of choice, and
perceived buyer power. Paesbrugghe et al. (2017) also
collected some primary data and used the Reck and Long
(1988) framework, finding that when the purchasing func-
tion is in the passive stage (price- and service-level focus),
buyers preferred product, geography-based, or relation-
ship selling strategies. In the independent purchasing
stage (cost focus), purchasers preferred value-based sell-
ing strategies. In the supportive stage (solution and inno-
vation focus), buyers preferred solution-based selling; and
in the integrative stage (strategy focus), buyers preferred
solution-based or key account selling strategies.
In terms of value creation, Ulaga and Eggert (2006)
found that sales organizations need to create value through
personal interaction and service, access to know-how, and
decreased time to market to be successful. Plank and Ferrin
(2002) suggested that personal selling and sales strategies
be based on the buyer’s valuation priorities.
Hunter, Bunn, and Perreault (2006) sampled 636 pur-
chases to examine the main constructs that characterize
the procurement process as a whole. Their results indi-
cated that buyers approach purchases with a higher strate-
gic value for the buying firm differently; they will
intensify their information search and will become more
proactive toward the selling company. Tellefsen (2002)
studied the commitment of buyers as related to both the
purchaser’s personal benefits and the purchaser’s organi-
zational benefits and found that selling organizations
should satisfy both needs. Hung and Lin (2013) examined
communication between buyers and sellers by surveying
298 buyers and found that effective communication has a
positive impact on the buyer–seller relationship in terms
of conflict and the purchaser’s perceived satisfaction.
Akrout et al. (2016) interviewed 15 purchasing managers
and conducted surveys with 153 decision makers to
develop and validate a scale of trust in long-term relation-
ships between buyers and sellers. Geiger et al. (2012)
studied why buyers and sellers stay in a buyer–seller rela-
tionship. In the context of relational tolerance, their
research indicates that buyers consider switching costs to
be more important than relationship value. Similarly,
Heide and Weiss (1995) examined buyer switching behav-
iors, but in a technology environment. For their research,
the authors interviewed organizational buyers and found
that individual buyer traits have an effect on consideration
and switching behaviors.
The twelve articles identified in the preceding indi-
cate that personal selling and sales research has infre-
quently addressed the purchasing function, and the
implications are sometimes at a very broad level (e.g.,
matching sales force with purchase function evolution)
and sometimes at a very narrow level (e.g., change pre-
sentation based on buyer priorities). In summary, the
seven articles that solely sampled the purchasing function
to derive implications for sales are characterized by their
focus on sales strategies and sales approaches. The focus
of the other five articles is on the buyer’s information
search, communication, commitment, trust, and switch-
ing behavior. Given the small body of literature, there is
a need for systematic research in this area because the
purchasing function is becoming strategic and more
important in the buying process. In the next section, we
examine how current sales research is addressing the pur-
chasing research areas.
Mapping sales research to purchasing research areas
One of the interesting aspects of examining research at the
intersection of personal selling and sales management and
the purchasing function pertains to the quantity of sales
research that has addressed the traditional and emerging/
trending areas of purchasing research. The examination
was done to identify areas in the purchasing function
where there is a paucity of sales research. This review
approach is similar to that followed by Wotruba (1996),
who reviewed the trends in buyer–seller relationships and
subsequently obtained implications for the sales function.
We fulfilled this task by building on the previously identi-
fied classification frame of purchasing research (Table 1)
and reviewed buyer–seller research in marketing and sales
literature (n D 327) between 1980 and 2017. The
Table 2. Research that examined the purchasing function and derived implications for personal selling and sales management.

Purchasing function Only the purchasing function Purchasing function Implications for Implications for
Reference Data set addressed/ sampled? addressed/ sampled? needs addressed? personal selling sales management

Akrout et al. Interviews with 15 Yes No Yes Salesperson should collect Affective Trust Scale could
(2016) purchasing information to assess the be very useful to guide
managers C three stage of the relationship managers in making the
surveys of 153 before money is being right decision by
decision makers used to target customers. balancing the sentiment
of security and affective
attachment dimensions
of affective trust.
Bunn (1993) Interviews with 11 Yes Yes Yes A tool by which sales Yes, limited to sales
purchasing representatives can interactions based on
executives C develop adaptive selling buying situations.
survey at National approaches based on a
Association of small set of buying
Purchasing situations and
Management corresponding buying
decision approaches.
Geiger et al. Survey of sales and Yes No Yes No. Sales managers are advised
(2012) purchasing to permanently develop
managers and execute activities
that highlight and
increase the relationship
value for their
customers.
Guenzi, De Survey of 134 B2B Yes No Yes Salespeople willing to win No.
Luca, and buyers, assuming customer trust should
Spiro (2016) they are purchasers modify their approach
across the relationship life
cycle.
Heide and Interviews with Yes No Yes, in a general No. Sales forces of vendors that
Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Weiss (1995) organizational sense are enhancing

buyers and survey cooperation between
data vendors must be
compensated.
Hung and Lin Survey of 298 Yes Yes Yes When the interpersonal Provide communication
(2013) procurement incompatibilities between skills training to lower
professionals a purchaser and a the purchasers’
salesperson are high, perceived task conflict.
salespersons should start This will improve the
the communication with buyer–seller
the purchaser. relationship.

(Continued on next page)

129
Table 2. Research that examined the purchasing function and derived implications for personal selling and sales management. (Continued.) 130
Purchasing function Only the purchasing function Purchasing function Implications for Implications for
Reference Data set addressed/ sampled? addressed/ sampled? needs addressed? personal selling sales management

Hunter, Bunn, Interview C survey of Yes Yes Yes Salespeople who are able to There might be a
and Perreault 636 members of share their analysis of disproportionateness
(2006) the Institute of information can easily between purchase
Supply draw the attention to the importance from the
Management purchase. customer and cruciality
from the seller’s
perspective.
Paesbrugghe Interviews with 34 Yes Yes Yes No. How to match sales
et al. (2017) buyers strategies to the four
levels of purchasing
maturity.
Plank and Ferrin Survey of 122 Yes Yes Yes The sales approach should No.
(2002) respondents be based on the buyer’s
(members of valuation priorities.
National
Association of
Purchasing
Managers)
Tellefsen (2002) Survey of 113 Yes Yes Yes No. Salespeople should be
purchasing trained and stimulated to
managers use collaborative
negotiating styles. This
would help to moderate
the information control
B. Paesbrugghe et al.

problem, which would

improve the purchasing
manager’s certainty.
Ulaga and Qualitative study and Yes. Yes. Yes. Personal interactions that No.
Eggert a cross-sectional add value for the
(2006) survey among purchaser, create access
senior purchasing to know-how, and
managers decrease the time to
market are contributing to
secure a central supplier
position.
Wood et al. Survey of 840 Yes. No. Yes. Not all types of selling No.
(2014) organizational approaches are equally
buyers effective when tested on
relational outcomes.
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
identification of the areas allowed us to highlight future
sales research focus areas. The details are provided next,
and the data are summarized in Table 3.
To examine research gaps (i.e., areas that are important
to the purchasing function but not addressed by sales
research), we examined the number of personal selling and
sales research articles that addressed the traditional and
emerging/trending areas of purchasing research. Interest-
ingly – and as expected – researchers in personal selling
and sales management have not addressed the emerging
topics. While we did not find articles that addressed those
topics and the purchasing function, we did find that the
broader category of “buyer–seller” literature did address
some of the topics. The 329 articles that were accessed in
examining buyer–seller literature (as discussed in the pre-
vious section) were paired with the emerging topics in pur-
chasing to identify the gaps in the personal selling and
sales management literature topics that are discussed next.
Traditional and emerging/trending categories struc-
tured the coding as follows. Two authors examined each
of the 179 articles that fit the research purpose, coded
these to identify the main themes in each article, and then
matched the main themes of these articles with the
research topics listed in Table 1. The results are presented
first for traditional topics in purchasing, followed by
emerging/trending topics in purchasing. Of the eight tradi-
tional topics in purchasing literature, the following topics
were addressed by buyer–seller research: partnership (22),
trust (16); cost (15); and innovation (8). Literature is very
sparse on the following themes: quality (4); e-purchasing
(3); reverse marketing (2); and outsourcing (1). In the area
of emerging/trending issues, research addressed local/
global/globalization (19), risk management (8), knowl-
edge and HR management (8), and innovation (8). The
other trending/emerging purchasing topics that have
received only limited/no attention are contract manage-
ment (4), ethics and corporate social responsibility (3),
green and sustainability management (0), and disaster
management (0).
Section 3: Identifying key topics for future sales
research in the area of purchasing
The research areas examined in the previous section were
purchasing-centric in that we examined the potential areas
of research according to emerging areas of research in
purchasing. In our attempt to provide a 360-degree view,
we also wanted to examine possible areas of research
from the personal selling and sales perspective. We sur-
veyed personal selling and sales management scholars for
their input and report those details and results first. Since
the perspective of the exploratory research was personal
selling and sales focused, we also wanted to examine the
purchasing perspective. To that end, we examined the
emerging/trending topics in purchasing that were not
131
addressed by sales researchers. We provide details on that
examination in the second section.
Sales scholar survey for research priorities
One of the issues in conducting exploratory research of sales
scholars is the potentially large number of research areas
and questions, which calls for a classification system to bet-
ter understand possible research areas. We used the classifi-
cation scheme proposed by Williams and Plouffe (2007),
which includes twenty categories and has been widely used
in personal selling and sales research (e.g., Geiger and
Guenzi 2009; Sharma 2016). The categories and descriptions
(Plouffe, Williams, and Wachner 2008) are detailed in
Table 4. We did not use the research category “General Sell-
ing and Sales” because there is no specific coding category
that can be assigned to the research topic, and it is used for
all research that does not fall into the other nineteen catego-
ries (Plouffe, Williams, and Wachner 2008).
By administering a survey, we identified what scholars
in the area of personal selling and sales management and
business-to-business marketing consider important research
topics for future sales research in the study of buyer–seller
relationships. We asked these sales scholars to identify
research needs at the intersection of personal selling and
sales management and the purchasing functions. This sec-
tion provides details and results of that effort.
To generate a list of possible research areas and spe-
cific questions, we developed a list of 440 sales and busi-
ness-to-business marketing scholars from the editorial
boards of the two journals that are closest to sales research
(Plouffe, Williams, and Wachner 2008) – the Journal of
Personal Selling & Sales Management and Industrial
Marketing Management – as well as members of the
Global Sales Science Institute (GSSI). This sample is thus
well suited to represent business-to-business marketing
and sales researcher opinions on future research.
We then used public sources to ascertain the e-mail
addresses of the scholars. We were not able to determine
the accuracy of all e-mail addresses, and some surveys
may not have reached the selected scholars. However, we
checked the list for duplicate e-mail addresses, since it is
possible to be a member of both review boards. We also
sent the mailing list to the organizer of the GSSI confer-
ence, who checked for duplicates as well. Finally, we
tracked respondent IP addresses to prevent any researcher
from filling out the survey more than once.
The scholars were invited to participate in a survey
on the importance of the sales categories proposed by
Willams and Plouffe (2007) for future sales research
regarding the intersection of purchasing and personal
selling and sales management.
The first wave of this survey yielded fifty-one valid
responses. After one week, the sampled scholars received a
reminder to participate in this survey or to complete the
132 B. Paesbrugghe et al.

Table 3. Traditional and emerging/trending purchasing function topics addressed by buyer–seller literature.

Number of
Purchasing topic articles Articles (references)

Traditional topics
Cost 15 Blut et al. (2016); Brown et al. (2011); Heide and Weiss (1995); Kahn and
Raju (1991); Lancastre and Lages (2006); Luo and Donthu (2007);
Paesbrugghe et al. (2017); Persson (2010); Pick and Eisend (2014);
Rangan, Moriarty, and Swartz (1992); Simonson, Nowlis, and Lemon
(1993); Streukens, van Hoesel, and de Ruyter (2011); Weber (2000); Yu
(2015); Myers, Daugherty, and Autry (2000).
Partnerships 22 Comer and Zirger (1997); Eggert, Ulaga, and Hollmann (2009); Ganesan
(1994); Hingley (2005); Huntley (2006); Lancastre and Lages (2006);
Ono and Kubo (2009); Paesbrugghe et al. (2017); Schertzer, Schertzer,
and Dwyer (2013); Spekman and Carraway (2006); Stremersch et al.
(2003); Ulaga and Eggert (2006); van Riel et al. (2011); Wagner and
Benoit (2015); Wang, Siu, and Barnes (2008); Wong, Tjosvold, and Yu
(2005); Dearden, Gary, and Yoon (1999); Kim (1999); Kim (2003);
Gassenheimer and Ramsey (1994); Tikoo (2002); Mentzer, Min, and
Zacharia (2000).
Quality 4 Ferguson (1996); Roman and Martin (2008); Simonson, Nowlis, and
Lemon (1993); Tax, Brown, and Chandrashekaran (1998).
Innovation 8 Brencic, Pfajfar, and Raskovic (2012); Chang, Cheng, and Wu (2012);
Charterina, Basterretxea, and Landeta (2016); Deshpand
e and Farley
(2004); Kim and Srivastava (1998); McQuiston (1989); Prior (2012);
Weiss and Heide (1993).
Outsourcing 1 Stremersch et al. (2003).
Reverse marketing 2 Andersen (2005); Gupta, Melewar, and Bourlakis (2010).
E-purchasing 3 Borders, Johnston, and Rigdon (2001); Chakravarty, Kumar, and Grewal
(2014); Lancastre and Lages (2006).
Trust 16 Ganesan (1994); Garbarino and Johnson (1999); Grayson and Ambler
(1999); Guenzi, De Luca, and Spiro (2016); Hawes, Strong, and Winick
(1996); Morgan and Hunt (1994); Oakley and Bush (2016); Tax, Brown,
and Chandrashekaran (1998); Valtakoski (2015); Wang, Siu, and
Barnes (2008); Yen and Barnes (2011); Coulter and Coulter (2003);
Wang et al. (2008); Van Bruggen, Kacker, and Nieuwlaat (2005);
Lusch, O’Brien, and Sindhav (2003); Gruen and Shah (2000).
Emerging/trending topics
Local/global/ globalization 19 Behyan, Mohamad, and Omar (2015); Dadzie, Johnston, and Pels (2008);
Djeflat (1998); Iyer, Sharma, and Evanschitzky (2006); Lai et al.
(2015); Leach (2009); Madhavara, Badrinarayanan, and Granot (2011);
Morris, Hansen, and Pitt (1995); Viswanathan, Rosa, and Ruth (2010);
Yen and Barnes (2011); Graça, Barry, and Doney (2016); Sharma
(2016); Dadzie, Johnston, and Pels (2008); Hewett, Money, and Sharma
(2006); Samaha, Beck, and Palmatier (2014); Simonson, Nowlis, and
Lemon (1993); Tsybina and Rebiazina (2013); Yen and Barnes (2011);
Graça, Barry, and Doney (2016).
Risk management 7 Brown et al. (2011); Claycomb and Frankwick (2010); Hewett, Money,
and Sharma (2006); Jennings and Plank (1995); Tuli and Bharadwaj
(2009); Valtakoski (2015); Walsh (1995).
Green and sustainability management 0
Contract management 4 Ehret and Haase (2012); Mooi and Ghosh (2010); Seshadri and Mishra
(2004); Wang, Bradford, and Weitz (2008).
Ethics and corporate social 3 Arnett, German, and Hunt (2003); Clarke, Flaherty, and Zugelder (2005);
responsibility Fisher (2007).
Innovation 8 Brencic, Pfajfar, and Raskovic (2012); Chang, Cheng, and Wu (2012);
Charterina, Basterretxea, and Landeta (2016); Deshpand
e and Farley
(2004); Kim and Srivastava (1998); McQuiston (1989); Prior (2012);
Weiss and Heide (1993).
Knowledge and HR management 8 Hunter (2014); Lehtimaki, Simula, and Salo (2009); Mitrega (2012); Ulaga
and Eggert (2006); Watkins and Hill (2009); Schrock et al. (2016);
Coulter and Coulter (2003); Wang et al. (2008).
Disaster management 0
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management 133

Table 4. Categorization of sales research areas (Plouffe, Williams, and Wachner 2008).

Rank Topic Description Mean

1 Selling process and technique Individual-level approaches to improving the effectiveness of 5.57
customer and prospect interactions and sales outcomes.
2 Buyer behavior Theories and models associated with the activities, emotions, and 5.56
responses of prospects and customers.
3 Sales/marketing strategy Higher-level sales management issues related to the firm’s overall 5.41
or marketing strategy.
4 Technology/sales force automation The impact and usage of new and emerging technologies and 5.25
innovations by the sales force in the conduct of their day-to-day
work.
5 Measurement Work that advances the science and practice of conducting 5.23
empirical research in sales.
6 Intraorganizational issues Factors and processes associated with how the salesperson 5.16
manages his or her internal work environment and those within
it.
7 Sales evaluation and performance Research that endeavors to understand how to measure/assess the 4.99
performance of salespeople.
8 Training Strategies and techniques to ensure the sales force is prepared to 4.84
serve its customers and prospects.
9 Recruiting and selection The process and characteristics by which salespeople are recruited 4.77
and selected for the firm.
10 Compensation Remuneration schemes and plans for rewarding the sales force. 4.70
10 Supervision The direction, management, guidance, and mentoring of first-level 4.70
salespeople.
12 Forecasting Processes and techniques for predicting sales volume and trends in 4.54
the future.
12 Motivation Theories and practices designed to better understand salespeople’s 4.54
goal attainment, retention, and satisfaction.
14 Turnover and retention The extent to which salespeople are retained, and factors that 4.53
negatively/positively influence this outcome.
15 Social, legal, and ethical issues Assessment of how the sales function affects, or is affected by, 4.48
social, legal, and ethical trends/issues.
16 Sales organization and positions The deployment of sales personnel, organizational structure, and 4.34
titles/job responsibilities of salespeople.
17 Time and territory Factors that influence and mechanisms by which the salesperson 4.14
works his or her geographic management territory or sales
assignment (e.g., assigned industry).
18 Quotas Raw amount and metrics associated with what the salesperson is 4.08
expected to sell for his or her firm.
19 Budgeting and cost analysis Planning and monitoring associated with the significant 3.89
expenditures made on the sales force.

survey if they had not filled out the whole survey. This sec-
ond wave resulted in an additional twenty-four respondents,
thus yielding a total of seventy-five full responses.
We used the same question for all nineteen research
topics. For each category, the category description and
topic definition were provided. For example, the following
data were provided for buyer behavior: Category Topic:
Buyer behavior (e.g., importance of personal and social
bonds); Topic Definition: Theories and models associated
with the activities, emotions, and responses of prospects
and customers.
The question for Category 2 was “We would like your
opinion on the importance of studying the following topic
when examining the intersection of purchasing and per-
sonal selling and sales management. Please rate from 1 to 7
(1 D not important and 7 D very important),” which was
followed by the category topic and definition. In addition,
we asked, “If you think the topic ‘Buyer behavior’ is
important, can you please share a possible research ques-
tion?” An overview of the results is presented in Table 4.
The topics that the scholars said require the
most attention were “Selling Process and Technique”
(mean D 5.57) and “Buyer Behavior” (mean D 5.56).
These were followed by the research topics “Sales/Market-
ing Strategy” (mean D 5.41) and “Technology/Sales Force
Automation” (mean D 5.25). Finally, “Measurement”
(mean D 5.23), and “Intraorganizational Issues” (mean D
5.16) came after those topics. All of these categories had
mean evaluations of more than 5.
Scholars also were asked to identify a research ques-
tion for each topic. This led to our list of scholar-identi-
fied research questions; the most important questions
identified by the authors are found in Table 5. In the fol-
lowing sections, we discuss each of the top six categories.
134
Selling process and technique
Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that buyers increas-
ingly bypass salespeople, using the Internet and other dig-
ital media to inform and prepare themselves for the sales
call (Adamson et al. 2015). This is most relevant for the
Table 5. Sample research questions.
Williams and Plouffe (2007) Category
Selling process and technique
Buyer behavior
Sales/marketing strategy
Technology/sales force automation
Measurement
Intraorganizational issues
Note: TCO D total cost of ownership.
B. Paesbrugghe et al.
purchasing function as it focuses on procurement. It
implies that to deal with a more informed purchaser, sales-
people need to be better prepared for a call both before,
during, and after a sales visit. Researchers have recently
started examining topics such as lead nurturing and
Sample research questions
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 How can you prepare best for the “sales call”? When does preparation really start? (i.e.,
shortly before the call/meeting or long before in the form of communication tools usage)
 How is social media changing selling and purchasing strategies?
 What closing techniques work best and under what conditions?
 What is the optimal sequencing of electronic media and face-to-face messages in
business-to-business sales settings?
 What selling techniques yield the best sales performance for different buying situations?
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 How do we better understand the purchasing function?
 How do we track the customer journey?
 How can the selling team/center learn about and affect the most important buying
criteria?
 How necessary is it to adapt individual selling responses according to the emotive
characteristic of the buyer?
 Why is TCO not yet widely accepted by buyers? Do buyers feel confident enough to
perform performance based (TCO-inspired) purchasing?
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 How aware are sales staff of strategy? Is it reflected in their roles?
 How can mid- and upper-level management impact in the field of sales performance?
 How can the sales force become more agile in a firm that has rigorous adherence to a
strategic planning document?
 What is the role of salespeople in process innovation?
 What is the relationship between sales and marketing, congruence between strategies,
building distinctive and dynamic capabilities and relating them to market orientation of
the firm?
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 What is the outcome of the application of Customer Relationship Management systems?
 Can technology replace face-to-face selling?
 Does the use of sales-force automation lead to new sales strategies?
 How are mobile apps changing personal selling?
 Will the use of predictive analysis and machine learning lead to replacement of
salespeople?
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 How do we get better profitability measures for individual salespeople?
 How should selling teams of complex products be evaluated?
 How do we develop new metrics in sales management?
 How do we set targets for long-term sustainability?
 What are the best tools for assessing relationship building?
When examining the intersection of purchasing and personal selling and sales management:
 Should salespeople training include rotations through operations, shipping, R&D, etc.?
 How to reduce conflict between different functional areas?
 How can the sales force be on the same page with service, support, digital media, web,
graphics, budget, etc. so that they all participate in providing some form of constant
message to customers?
 How can marketing–sales interactions improve?
 How should salespeople build and manage internal networks to improve sales and service
delivery?
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
content marketing as part of marketing automation pro-
cesses to help business-to-business salespeople better
meet the requirements of the purchaser (Jarvinen and Tai-
minen 2016; Wieresma 2013). While the sales literature is
slowly beginning to research the impact of new digital
media on the sales process, research on the impact of digi-
tal media on the purchasing function is still limited. Inter-
estingly, the Internet and digital tools such as e-
commerce, marketplaces, and e-auctions are used in the
later stages of the buying process (Mishra, Konana, and
Barua 2007), in which purchasing is actively involved.
Few studies focus on the use of digital media in the early
stages of the buying process, specifically with regard to
sales strategies associated with the purchasing function.
Understanding how the purchasing function is evolving to
use digital media will have an impact on not just the sales
process, but also the go-to-market approaches of sales
organizations. However, recent research in the Journal of
Personal Selling & Sales Management was dedicated to
the impact of social media on personal selling and sales
management, where Itani, Agnihotri, and Dingus (2017)
showed how social media and social selling play a vital
role for business-to-business salespeople.
Thus, we suggest that future research should focus on
understanding how sales organizations need to bring their
use of digital media in line with the willingness of the pur-
chasing function to use digital media. Understanding this
must go hand in hand with a better focus on how sales pro-
cesses and techniques need to be adapted to fulfill pur-
chasing function needs in a digital era.
Buying behavior
Research in marketing is increasingly focusing on how
firms that tend to deliver a great customer experience tend
to focus more on understanding a buyer’s behavior
throughout the customer journey (Lemon and Verhoef
2016). Thus, it is vital that sales organizations understand
the purchasing function journey in order to engage with
the buyer in every step along the journey. Understanding
that different stakeholders from the purchasing organiza-
tion might be involved in different parts of the customer
journey might require sales organizations to focus more
on a team-based approach toward selling so they fulfill all
the needs of the purchasing organization’s buying center.
In addition, most business-to-business sales organizations
invest heavily in developing tools such as total cost of
ownership (TCO) calculators to enable their salespeople
to influence buyer behaviors. TCO selling has a rich
research tradition in sales (De Rose 1991; Terho et al.
2012; T€ oyt€ari, Rajala, and Brashear 2015). However, the
issue with TCO selling is that customers and the purchas-
ing function often find it difficult to determine their value
and costs (Hinterhuber 2008; Ulaga 2003). There is a
135
need to study the buying behavior of the purchasing func-
tion and the impact it has on the sales function.
Some work has begun in this area. Paesbrugghe et al.
(2017) use the Reck and Long (1988) model to highlight
how sales organizations can adapt their sales strategies to
meet the requirements of the purchasing function.
Sales/marketing strategy
Jarvinen and Taiminen (2016) used a case study to
illustrate how aligning sales and marketing strategies
was critical for a business-to-business firm to better
meet the requirements of the purchaser. They also
investigated the organizational processes for developing
valuable and timely marketing content to meet purchas-
ing needs and for integrating content marketing with
business-to-business selling processes to yield better
business results – an area that needs additional research
attention. Misaligning the sales strategy/process with
that of the purchasing function could lead to improper
customer portfolio assessment, resulting in inefficient
go-to-market strategies, sales organizational structure,
and resource allocation (Zoltners, Sinha, and Lorimer
2008). Thus the impact of having the marketing and
sales strategy aligned with a more customer-centric pur-
chasing view is likely to have a positive impact on the
performance of the sales force, which is another area
that requires research attention. We also suggest that
more research should focus on how the evolution of the
purchasing function and its needs should drive the mar-
keting and sales strategies of supplier organizations.
Technology/sales-force automation
Sales literature on the use of technologies over the years
has predominantly focused on the level of automation tech-
nology used by the sales force (Sharma and Sheth 2010).
With advances in technology, research is now beginning to
look into the role of digital tools, such as social media
(Andzulis, Panagopoulos, and Rapp 2012) and mobile
assistants (Spreer and Rauschnabel 2016). Interestingly, the
purchasing literature has focused on the use of new technol-
ogies to increase the efficiencies of the purchasing process
(Gattiker, Huang, and Schwarz 2006; Huang, Gattiker, and
Schwarz 2008). Specifically, Huang, Gattiker, and Schwarz
(2008) highlighted how the complexity of the purchase sit-
uation and the communication channel used by the buyer
has an impact on the level of trust in the buyer–seller rela-
tionship. Gattiker, Huang, and Schwarz (2006) used a sim-
ulation to suggest that media richness has an impact on
interpersonal trust in buyer–seller relationships. Sellers
who use face-to-face negotiations had more trust in the
buyers, even when the complexity of the purchase was
deemed high. However, when face-to-face negotiations
were not possible, then e-mail was seen to have the same
136 B. Paesbrugghe et al.
impact as a face-to-face negotiation when compared to
reverse auction settings. This initial research needs to be
widened as technologies and sales-force automation
increase. In addition, research needs to examine the impact
of machine learning and artificial intelligence on the inter-
action of sales and purchasing functions.
Measurement
Practitioner literature states that the number of individuals
involved in the decision-making unit of the customer is
increasing (Adamson et al. 2015). This would suggest a
more complex sales process, with the likelihood of
increased sales-cycle times and the prospect of team-
based selling. A number of research questions can be
derived. How should teams be evaluated? If the purchas-
ing function is evolving and requires salespeople to pro-
vide more value-added services, an area of research that
may be relevant is ambidexterity, where sellers provide
both sales and service to their customers (Rapp et al.
2017). If that is the case, how should the performance of
salespeople be measured? If the sales process is getting
longer owing to more complex purchasing function needs,
and if this involves servicing the customer more, then, in
keeping with the suggestions from Zoltners, Sinha, and
Lorimer (2008), should activity-based metrics be the most
appropriate method to evaluate salesperson performance?
Intraorganizational issues
The impact of intraorganizational issues on the ability of
salespeople to meet the needs of customers has been the
subject of sales researchers who have primarily focused
on the sales–marketing interface (Sheth and Sharma
2008). Recent research in the business-to-business
domains has highlighted the increased role of digital chan-
nels used by organizational marketing departments to
reach out to customers, but the results have been mixed.
One possible reason cited by previous research is the lack
of sales support to help educate customers about the digi-
tal channels. In recent research, Spreer and Rauschnabel
(2016) suggested that despite the availability of sales aids
created by marketing, salespeople do not use marketing
collateral in the sales process. The problem may be more
acute when interacting with the purchasing function, as
research suggests that the purchasing function is using
more digital media (Gattiker, Huang, and Schwarz 2006;
Huang, Gattiker, and Schwarz 2008). Thus, future
research should focus on how marketing and sales can bet-
ter improve internal cooperation to ensure that the needs
of the purchasing function are met. Similarly,
more research needs to focus on the interface between
sales and other internal functions within the sales organi-
zation, including information technology, supply chain,
operations, and research and development (Jarvinen and
Taiminen 2016), to better meet the needs of the purchas-
ing function.
Developing a sales agenda based on an analysis of emer-
gent purchasing topics
One of the interesting aspects of the data from researchers
was that the emerging topics of research in the purchasing
area were very infrequently addressed. We discussed that
the personal selling and sales management function has to
pay attention to the needs of the purchasing function to
enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales func-
tion. Therefore, research has to address areas that are
important to the purchasing function but have not been
addressed by sales researchers. We attempt to rectify the
situation by identifying important areas for the purchasing
function that research in the buyer–seller area has ignored.
The purchasing areas that had three or fewer research
articles are (with the number of articles in parentheses)
disaster management (0); green and sustainability manage-
ment (0); outsourcing (1); reverse marketing (2); e-purchas-
ing (3); and ethics and corporate social responsibility (3).
We will now discuss six exemplars for future sales
research based on the highlighted research priorities. The
combination of disaster management and selling process
and technique is one possible avenue for future research.
Sales researchers could examine what disaster management
implies for purchasers and consider the implications for
sales research on how sales management can improve the
sales process and how salespeople should adjust their sales
technique in the context of disaster management, or when
the purchaser is organizing the buying firm for extreme
risks. Zsidisin, Melnyk and Ragatz (2005) suggested that
supply chains are increasingly susceptible to unplanned,
unanticipated disruptions and that suppliers need to provide
information on disaster management. They further sug-
gested that in complex environments, better disaster plan-
ning by suppliers may give them an edge, which is an area
that should be further examined by sales researchers.
Second, green and sustainability management has not
received any of the attention it deserves in the personal
selling and sales management domain. Sales researchers
should start closing this research gap and give priority to
how buyer behavior is influencing the needs of purchasers
when they are procuring goods and services that have
an environmental impact on their company. Sharma
et al. (2010) examined the context in the domain of busi-
ness-to-business marketing, but further research is needed
on the interaction of personal selling and sales strategy
and green and sustainability management.
As a third research topic that needs attention in future
personal selling and sales management research, we rec-
ommend the study of outsourcing through a purchaser’s
lens and how sales/marketing strategies should be adapted
according to whether the purchaser wants to outsource
 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
this type of purchase or not (Sharma, Iyer, and Raajpoot
2009). As an example of research in this area, Stremersch
et al. (2003) surveyed fifty-five executive officers from
telecommunications operators and found that buyers are
concerned about how much they outsource to one or more
supply companies and whether they also should outsource
the system integration. In this context, sales researchers
could also consider incorporating the research subject of
technology/sales-force automation as a possible solution
for the outsourcing needs of the purchasing side.
Fourth, reverse marketing has gained importance in
the purchasing literature. However, there is only a very
limited body of research addressing this topic in the per-
sonal selling and sales management literature. Sales
researchers should address this topic and find answers to
research questions related to reverse marketing from a
purchaser’s point of view as well as how current sales/
marketing strategies should be modified according to the
changes happening in the purchaser’s buying process. For
example, Andersen (2005) conducted a case study on rela-
tionship-marketing communications and found that online
brand communities are essential for reverse marketing in
a business-to-business setting, but the impact of the pur-
chasing function is not defined.
Next, we highlight the combination of the subjects e-
purchasing and buyer behavior. Future sales research that
deals with the impact of e-purchasing on buyer behavior,
and hence the sales organization, will help close the gap
between the personal selling and sales management and
purchasing research domains (Sharma and Sheth 2004).
As an example, Chakravarty, Kumar, and Grewal (2014)
collected data from 109 business-to-business electronic
platforms and conducted in-depth field interviews to find
that these platforms have a higher performance when
there is a better alignment between the dependence man-
agement strategy and the specific dependence situation,
both from the customer’s point of view. The purchasing
function should be incorporated in this research in the
future.
The final issue is that of ethics and corporate social
responsibility. As in the discussion on green and sustain-
ability management, this issue has not received sufficient
research attention in the context of purchasing. Although
there has been extensive research on salesperson ethics,
the relationship with the purchasing function has not been
explored and should emerge as a critical area of future
research. With product fragmentation and supplier consol-
idation, ethics and corporate social responsibility may
become a key discriminator.
Section 4: Conclusions
Our interest in this study was on the extant research on the
interaction of personal selling and sales management
research and purchasing function research and the
137
identification of areas for future research. In this regard,
we asked two theoretical questions. First, we asked what
the extant and emerging needs of the purchasing function
are, and, as the purchasing function is dynamic, whether
sales strategies and sales research are addressing the
evolving needs of the purchasing function. Second, we
asked what the important areas of research on the intersec-
tion of personal selling and sales management and the
purchasing function are. Using a literature survey, we
found that purchasing has unique needs and that personal
selling and sales research has not paid sufficient attention
to the purchasing function needs, both existing and emerg-
ing. Pairing exploratory research involving scholars with
literature survey results, we developed an analysis of
emergent purchasing topics that is discussed next.
In examining potential areas of research on the inter-
section of personal selling and sales management and the
purchasing function, we highlighted possible research
areas from two perspectives. First, we examined the
research areas that scholars in personal selling and sales
management have regarded as important. This was fol-
lowed by a discussion on the areas that the purchasing
function suggests are important but that are not addressed
by researchers in personal selling and sales management.
We discussed the areas that scholars identify as being
important for personal selling and sales management and
highlighted an area that we think may be important. Sell-
ing process and technique is regarded by scholars as a
very important area. Despite the advent of digitalization
in business-to-business buying, researchers have infre-
quently examined the impact of digitization on the pur-
chasing function and have not developed strategies to
address needs. Buyer behavior is another important area
for research. Specifically, comprehending the purchasing
function journey is regarded as important not only for
understanding the needs of the purchasing function but
also for developing sales strategy. Emphasizing sales/mar-
keting strategy with the accompanying goal of coordinat-
ing the marketing and sales function in addressing the
purchasing function is another important area for future
research. The impact of technology/sales-force automa-
tion on addressing the needs of the purchasing function is
another area that can be important for successful sales
strategies. Scholars have also highlighted that measure-
ment, and developing measure for sales evaluation with
regard to the purchasing function, is important for per-
sonal selling and sales management. Finally, intraorgani-
zational issues of coordinating multiple function areas is
important for addressing the needs of the purchasing
function.
In discussing areas that are important for the purchas-
ing function, disaster management is an area for future
research. The sales strategies associated with products/
services with higher risk need to be examined. Green and
sustainability management and ethics and corporate
138 B. Paesbrugghe et al.
responsibility are also important for firms and the purchas-
ing function, and research is required to match green and
corporate social responsibility strategies and sales strate-
gies. Outsourcing is an important area for future research
due to the dramatic impact it has on the functioning of the
firms. The purchasing function is cognizant of the need,
and the sales function needs to develop in this area.
Finally, additional research is required in the areas of
reverse marketing and e-purchasing, areas that have little
research in sales.
This article suggests that a lack of research and under-
standing of the needs of the purchasing function leads to a
reduction in the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales
function. Research has suggested that the salesperson per-
ception of the purchasing function is inaccurate and that
the purchasing function seeks a more nuanced approach
(based on the stages of purchasing function evolution)
than salespeople provide (Paesbrugghe et al. 2017). We
expect additional research on the purchasing function to
enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales func-
tion and hope that this article serves as impetus for future
research in this area.
Declaration of interest
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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