The Influence of Prior Experience on Amount of Search and Serach Correlates: A Study for Computer Serach Behavior of Industrial Firms

Abstract

We have been recently witnessing in marketing a growing interest in the study of organizational search behavior (e.g., Bunn 1994; Dholakia et al. 1993; Doney and Armstrong 1996; Heide and Weiss 1995). As Moorthy et al. (1997) have argued, understanding consumers' information search behavior is crucial to firms' strategic decision making. Correspondingly, empirical research on individuals' information search behavior has been a long tradition in marketing (Beatty and Smith 1987; Newman 1977; Punj and Staelin 1983; Sirinivasan and Ratchford 1991; Urbany et al. 1989). Similarly, Johnston and Lewin (1996) argue that in order to succeed in business-to-business markets selling firms must possess an understanding of customer firms’ buying behavior. They also claim that such an understanding in organizational buying may be difficult to achieve because organizational buying behavior, as opposed to individual consumers' behavior is often a multiphase, multi person, multi departmental, and multi objective process. This dynamic and intricate process frequently presents sellers with a complex set of issues and situational factors that directly and indirectly influence buying firm behavior (Johnston and Lewin 1996).