How online information search behavior and the role of tacit knowledge differ across clusters of purchase situations

Online information sources increase the amount of information that is available for purchasing managers in a particular purchasing situation. Yet, how buyers make use of that information and thereby rely on tacit knowledge is theoretically still poorly understood. This paper relies on 40 qualitative in-depth interviews with purchasing managers from different manufacturing industries. Whereas previous research mainly considered the purchasing organization or the purchasing department as the unit of analysis, we are able to provide a finer-grained understanding by zooming-in on separate purchasing situations and employing a quantitative method to cluster these. We find that online information search is differentiated in terms of its extent and role. It is particularly relevant in buying situations characterized by high novelty, while at the same time, these can have either high or low levels of risk, complexity, and importance. We also find that the role of tacit knowledge is differentiated. Across different purchase situations, this provides various kinds of support to purchasing managers to identify, retrieve and use information. Sometimes tacit knowledge aids speed and efficiency of decision-making, but in other clusters, it helps to deal with large amounts of complex information. Furthermore, purchase situations can be distinguished as to whether tacit knowledge is based on accumulation of experience with similar buying situations versus broader purchasing experience.