Purchasing knowing-doing gaps and the influence of incentives from a buyer-internal customer relationship perspective

Purchasing knowing–doing gaps, are the differences between what professional buyers know about purchasing (what they should ideally do) and what they actually do. Purchasing knowing-doing gaps are a potential risk for underutilization of purchasing from the widely accepted belief that purchasing contributes positively to firm performance. In this research we found that financial incentives have a significant relation with the existence of purchasing knowing-doing gaps, although they are neither a sufficient nor a necessary precondition. Financial incentives can be influenced by non-financial incentives in a way that incentivised behaviour can have a crowding-out effect. We know from social science based research that professional norms are in fact a type of non-financial incentives and that they might interact with financial incentives in place. In this research on purchasing knowing-doing gaps and the influence of incentives we found that professional purchasing norms are a countervailing force offsetting the impact of financial incentives for buyers. Both general managers and managers of purchasing departments should investigate the professional norms of their buyers in order to better understand the impact of those norms on the financial incentivized behaviour. The academic contribution is made by combining insights and literature from several scientific disciplines and by use of laboratory experiments in a purchasing context. The use of experiments is not new to science as such but is not frequently used in the field of purchasing and supply management.