Managing buyer experience in a buyer-supplier relationship in MSMEs and SMEs

Prashant Kumar; Amit Kumar Kushwaha; Arpan Kumar Kar; Yogesh K Dwivedi; Nripendra P Rana

doi:10.1007/s10479-022-04954-3

Managing buyer experience in a buyer-supplier relationship in MSMEs and SMEs

Ann Oper Res. 2022 Sep 16:1-28. doi: 10.1007/s10479-022-04954-3. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Prashant Kumar¹, Amit Kumar Kushwaha¹, Arpan Kumar Kar¹, Yogesh K Dwivedi^{2

3}, Nripendra P Rana⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.
² Emerging Markets Research Centre (EMaRC), School of Management, Room #323, Swansea University, Bay Campus, Fabian Bay, Swansea, SA1 8EN Wales, UK.
³ Department of Management, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune & Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, Maharashtra India.
⁴ College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, P.O. Box 2713, Qatar.

Abstract

Monitoring buyer experience provides competitive advantages for suppliers as buyers explore the market before reaching a salesperson. Still, not many B2B suppliers monitor their buyers' expectations throughout their procurement journey, especially in MSMEs and SMEs. In addition, the inductive research on evaluating buyer experience in buyer-supplier relationships is minimal, leaving an unexplored research area. This study explores antecedents of buyer experience during the buyer-supplier relationship in MSMEs and SMEs. Further, we investigate the nature of the influence of extracted precursors on the buyer experience. Firstly, we obtain the possible antecedents from the literature on buyer-supplier experience and supplier selection criteria. We also establish hypotheses based on transaction cost theory, resource-based view (RBV), and information processing view. Secondly, we employ an investigation based on the social media analytics-based approach to uncover the antecedents of buyer experience and their nature of influence on MSMEs and SME suppliers. We found that buyer experience is influenced by sustainable orientation, management capabilities (such as crisis management and process innovation), and suppliers' technology capabilities (digital readiness, big data analytical capability).

Keywords: Big data analytics; Buyer experience; Buyer–supplier relationship; Machine learning; Small and medium enterprises; Social media; Text mining.