Response-time measurement of group purchasing-decision power structures

Although a critical task for many sales and marketing executives, the measurement of power structures in clients' buying centers is notoriously difficult. The typical assessment method is to ask each identified buying center actor to assess all the members' power on a constant-sum scale, then to take an average of the whole set for each member. This method is clumsy, in that the researcher must first identify the buying center and then ask many repetitive questions. The method may also invoke deliberate biases as members assess each other's and their own power. This study develops a simple-to-use, response-time (RT), measurement of buying centers' power structures. This article describes a field test of the RT scale. The field test includes collecting buying center data and then measuring the convergence between the RT scale, a conventional constant-sum scale and with validated scales drawn from social network analysis.