Jan LakottaAntecedents and Consequences of Managerial Confusion in Service-to-Business Buying

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Drawing on the decision-making and bounded rationality literature streams, the author conceptualizes and measures managerial confusion, which is critical for choice-process satisfaction. He examines the key drivers and outcomes of managerial confusion and the role of the decision’s importance in dealing with complexities using data collected from a diverse sample of key informants. The results demonstrate that the perceived complexities of a market offering and its underlying market structure contribute significantly to managerial confusion. Furthermore, the influence of managerial confusion on a decision-maker’s choice-process satisfaction is fully mediated by his/her degree of procedural rationality. By moderating the influence that the market offering’s complexity has on managerial confusion, the level of importance of the decision determines whether organizational buyers fall prey to (at low levels of perceived importance) or strive to avoid confusion. The study provides insights into why purchase decisions on Business-to-Business markets do not always proceed optimally from the standpoint of an organizational buyer’s satisfaction with his/her decision-making process.