“Do as I Do and Not as I Say”: Exploring Price-Oriented Maverick Buying During Supplier Selection

This article empirically examines the occurrence of price-oriented maverick buying (MB) during supplier selection, in a direct purchasing process context. Drawing on agency theory, maverick buying, and total cost of ownership (TCO) literature, the statistically significant existence of price-oriented MB is investigated and the purchasing manager (PM)-related factors that influence such noncompliant behavior are determined. A discrete choice experiment is designed to simulate a TCO-based supplier selection process in which an established purchasing framework agreement stipulates PMs not necessarily be price-oriented (i.e., select suppliers primarily based on lowest price), and then models PM choice behavior in the supplier selection process (SSP), utilizing a conditional logit model (CLM) to determine PM compliance to the established purchasing framework agreement and identify if price-oriented MB exists. Statistical tests utilizing comprehensive primary and secondary data are then conducted to determine if correlational relationships exist between PM-related factors and PM price-orientation. Results indicate that three PM-related factors bear a significant correlational relationship to PM price-orientation.