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JIBR
10,2 Assessing the role of emotions in
B2B decision making:
an exploratory study
170 Santosh Kumar Pandey and Amit Mookerjee
Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India
Received 4 October 2017
Revised 15 December 2017
Accepted 20 December 2017
Abstract
Purpose – Emotions in business-to-business (B2B) interactions are relatively unexplored when compared
with business-to customer (B2C) industry wherein sufficient evidence implicating the role of emotions in
decision-making is available. This study aims to explore the role of emotions in B2B decision-making, and a
customer experience model is suggested for the B2B industry.
Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative research methodology using structured and semi-
structured interviews along with a repertory grid technique was followed during the study. Purposive
sampling was done to identify respondents who were involved in the vendor choice process either as a buyer
or a seller in their respective organizations.
Findings – Exploratory research conducted during this study supports the presence of five dimensions of
customer experience – sensory, emotional, relational, behavioural and intellectual – in a B2B context. The
study further indicates that the experiential value for B2B decision-making is derived from functional,
symbolic, emotional and cost values which are assessed by the buyer during their interaction with the product
or the service ecosystem and has an impact on the purchase intentions of an industrial buyer.
Originality/value – This paper identifies the role of specific customer experience dimensions in a B2B
environment and proposes the role and mechanism of emotional factors affecting the decision-making process
in B2B exchange.
Keywords B2B, Experiential value, Purchase intention, Customer experience
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Research in marketing, particularly business-to-business (B2B), generally exhibits
assumptions that consumer choices, including repeat purchases, relationship continuity and
partnering, are guided mostly by cognitive elements such as perceived quality and price
(Zeithaml, 1988), perceived risk (Taylor, 1974; Peter and Ryan, 1976), quality (Zeithaml et al.,
1996), trust (defined as beliefs) and commitment (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), or by criteria
such as economic costs and technical specifications mainly. The aforementioned research
does not directly indicate the role played by affective processes in consumer decisions.
Traditional decision theories in B2B were driven by rational choice processes described
in economics and statistics which primarily stressed on profits being the main criteria

Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the following paper appears in Vol. 10 No. 2
when it should feature with the other NASMEI conference special issue papers. Santosh Kumar Pandey,
Journal of Indian Business
Amit Mookerjee, 2018, “Assessing the role of emotions in B2B decision making: an exploratory study”
Research (pp. 170-192), in the Journal of Indian Business Research, Vol. 10 No. 2, when they should have been
Vol. 10 No. 2, 2018
pp. 170-192 published in the NASMEI conference special issue of the Journal of Indian Business Research, Vol. 10
© Emerald Publishing Limited No. 3. The remaining special issue papers will appear in Vol. 10 No. 3. This happened due to an error in
1755-4195
DOI 10.1108/JIBR-10-2017-0171 the production process. Emerald would like to sincerely apologises to the author and its readers.
driving a B2B choice decision (Cyert et al., 1956). Cyert et al. (1956), in their narrative on B2B decision
“observation of a business decision”, suggest that search and information-gathering making
processes in B2B decision constitutes major portion of the decision-making process and
results in the selection of a satisfactory alternative, leading to a specific (technical/economic)
goal achievement that satisfies a number of auxiliary conditions. Levitt (1965) explored
perceived risk as the driving force in organizational buying behavior (OBB). Cardozo and
Cagley (1971), through a controlled experiment, found that industrial buyers have a
preference for types of bidders, and bids are influenced by the amount and type of risk. 171
Ammer (1972) explored reciprocal buying agreements between organizations. The available
literature on early decision models indicate that cognitive factors are highly studied in OBB.
Early research has also brought out certain non-task factors along with the task-related
factors (Webster and Wind, 1972), as well as individual psychology, power play and
interpersonal conflict resolution (Sheth, 1973), in organizational decisions. Tosi (1966) and
Weigand (1968) explored interpersonal interaction in organizational buying, and Wind (1970)
explored source loyalty. These issues are more persona-based and psychologically inclined,
and these also indicate interpersonal situation-based factors affecting B2B decisions. These
studies indicate the significant role of factors that are distinctly different from highly cognitive
processes and technical/economic factors, such as personal characteristics, psyche and affective
factors and social and interpersonal dynamics. However, these factors exhibit far less research
when compared with studies based on the paradigm of B2B as a rational, cognitive process.
The basic premise of various frameworks of B2B decisions proposed in the literature
reflects the cognitive process, and research was primarily viewed through this lens and has
dominated the discourse at the expense of focus on other types of factors. For instance,
traditionally, service satisfaction, leading to vendor renewal/rejection decisions, was projected
as a consequence of service quality, a noticeably cognitive process of comparing perceptions of
performance and expectations (Oliver and Westbrook, 1993; Parasuraman et al., 1994); whereas,
satisfaction could also be considered as an affective outcome. Research focussed primarily on
what leads to satisfaction, through usually cognitive antecedents, and not on the outcome of
satisfaction. Few research studies focused on the possible reasons why the affective state of
satisfaction exhibited inconsistent proof of the linkage with its proposed consequent effect on
loyalty. Factors such as trust are defined as beliefs, and commitment refers mainly to
structural, financial and other cognitive choice-driven elements (Morgan and Hunt, 1994) in the
B2B space. The limited mention of role of affect is in constructs such as affective commitment.
Prior literature on non-task factors in B2B, the role of individual psychology, power play and
other factors cited above is supported by recent work on the role of affective factors. There is
evidence of multiple processes of arriving at decisions, including emotional processing
(Kaufmann et al., 2017). Affective factors may hence play a significant role, and these have now
started receiving attention while discussing the organizational buying behaviour.
An exploration of research on affective factors in consumer choices shows that the
business-to-customer (B2C) domain literature on affective factors in consumer choices has
evolved significantly. The role of emotions in B2C service consumption and its inclusion in
traditional models of cognitive evaluation have been stressed; studies range from exploring
affect and expectancy value together (Bagozzi, 1982) to understanding the interplay between
affect and cognition (Shiv and Fedorikhin, 1999) and particularly service evaluations
(Liljander and Strandvik, 1997). There is now a growing body of evidence that postulates the
role of the consumer’s heart along with mind. Service encounters are now considered as
“breeding grounds” for emotion (Grace, 2007; Maguire and Geiger, 2015).
Research on emotions and its impact on consumer behaviour in a B2C environment has
gathered momentum, with extensive studies in retail environment (Spence et al., 2014;
JIBR Gilboa et al., 2016), online behaviour and service markets like banking and airlines (Chahal
10,2 and Dutta, 2015; Song, 2015; Chauhan and Manhas, 2014) and emotional branding (Akgün
et al., 2013), leading to the establishment of a generally accepted customer experience (CX)
framework in the B2C space. However very few frameworks of CX are found for the B2B
space, and these focus on net promoter score and customer satisfaction scale, leaving a wide
gap in exploring emotions as a primary construct in B2B purchase decision-making.
172 Emotions in an industrial buying scenario is still relatively unexplored. Although the
initial research in B2B decisions did highlight the role of these non-task, affective factors, it
is only now that research such as that of Kaufman et al. cited above shows evidence of the
significance and mechanism of affective factors in B2B choices.
Given the earlier work on psychological factors in the B2B framework and looking into the
role of emotions brought out by research in experiential frameworks (B2C), non-cognitive factors
may be taken up for further study in the B2B context. Studies on the role of emotions have often
used experiential framework, and it may be highly relevant to study the impact of emotions in
B2B decision-making by using an experiential framework as well. Experiential framework is also
becoming the leading paradigm in the services sector in B2B, and in all areas where relationship
marketing for practitioners while dealing in the B2B environment and where relationship
marketing for vendor and customer management are already well-established paradigms (Sheth
and Parvatiyar, 1995a, 1995b; Ford et al., 1996). Building upon the existing framework of
customer experience, this study explores the affective nature of consumer behaviour and the
impact of emotions in the consumer decision-making process for the B2B service industry.

Research gap and research problem

Considerable research has been done on OBB. Traditionally, the decision-making process
was the most researched area in OBB (Dempsey, 1978; Lynn, 1987; Kohli, 1989; Dholakia et
al., 1993; Schmittlein and Peterson, 1994), although buyer–seller relationships, supplier
partnerships, quality and supply chain partnering were also studied (Nicosia and Wind,
1977a, 1977b; Bagozzi, 1978; Bonoma and Johnston, 1978; Håkansson and Snehota, 1989;
Dabholkar et al., 1994; Anderson et al., 1994). A gradual shift of OBB from pure transaction-
centred to relationship-centred approach is evident from the literature review. It is also
evident from these studies that emotions/sentiments have been part of most of the OBB
models proposed in the past. Webster and Wind (1972) proposed that variables influencing
organizational buying decisions can be classified into “task-related” and “non–task-related”.
While “task-related” variables addressed the rationality aspect of decision-making, the
“non–task-related” variables focused on factors such as personal values and needs,
emotions, relationships and political conditions. According to their model, sentiments get
generated and influence both task- and non–task-related variables. While economic- and
task-based variables were considered to be the driving force behind OBB during this period,
scholars had also started exploring non–task-related variables. Sheth (1973) proposed the
“integrative model of industrial buyer behaviour” which highlights three aspects of
industrial buying situation – psychology of the individuals involved in the buying centre,
conditions under which a joint decision is taken amongst them and the process of decision-
making including the conflicts and their resolution. These studies have pointed out the role
of the individual’s psyche and their persona and their assessment of social, interpersonal
and power dynamics in a situation, with a clear role of assessments of non-technical factors,
presumably through a lens of more personal likes and feelings, and of a distinctively
affective nature as against a purely cognitive assessment. This may help prove the premise;
however, there is a limited array of work, and we do not find sufficient studies exploring the
role of “emotions” in B2B decision-making.
 Other recent studies in emotion-influenced choices range from studying consumer B2B decision
switching behaviour owing to negative emotional experience (Roos and Friman, 2008), making
impact on customer loyalty (Wong, 2004; Roos et al., 2009), influence on word of mouth
(WOM) (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997), attitude towards the company (Davidow, 2003) and
role of emotions in customer complaints (Svari and Erling, 2012).
Theoretically, based on the above evidence, it may be posited that consumer emotions affect
satisfaction (particularly dissatisfaction), switching behaviour (owing to negative experiences) or
attitude modulation (attitudes by definition including both cognitive and affective components), 173
and because the variables of satisfaction and attitude also affect B2B consumer choices (as
evidenced by the widely used CSAT measurements in the B2B domain for enhancing service
delivery and value); hence, it may be deduced that emotions play a role in B2B decisions as well.
Going further, it is highly likely that in B2B decision-making, the role of factors cited earlier such
as persona- and situation-related individual differences may be reflected in emotions, and these
factors are a part of the mechanism of choice. This is reflected in the work of Kaufmann et al.
(2017) and in the research on role of brand equity, value, customer attitudes and satisfaction in
B2B literature (Bolton et al., 2008; Lee and Kwon, 2006; Cano et al., 2005; Kivetz et al., 2004a,
2004b; Harrison-Walker and Neeley, 2004; Kleindorfer and Wu, 2003; La et al., 2009).
However, there are few integrated frameworks in the B2B literature, which capture the
nuances of both affective and situational, psyche-driven factors. There is also limited
research in B2B experiential phenomena.
This study aims to bridge this gap, by examining whether emotions play a role in the
B2B decision-making process. The objective of this study is to theoretically assess the role of
emotions as an antecedent to CX in B2B purchase decision-making process.

Literature review
Organizational buying is a complex process when compared to individual purchases, as it
involves many stakeholders playing varied roles in the buying centre, multiple goals and
potentially conflicting decision criteria. The decision-making process extends over a period of
time and passes through various stages before the final purchase decision is made. Webster and
Wind (1972) viewed an organizational buyer as a constrained decision maker motivated by a
combination of personal and organizational goals with dependency on others to satisfy these
needs. Underlying motivation behind buying centre members at times may conflict, as it is a
complex interaction of individual, departmental and organizational goals. Organizational buying
behaviour is determined by four classes of variables – environmental, organizational, social and
individual influences (Webster and Wind, 1972). Within each class of variable proposed by
Webster and Wind (1972), there are two sub-classes of task-related and non–task-related
variables. Task-related variables directly address the buying problem such as lowest price,
meeting specifications, local policies, while non–task-related variables extend beyond the buying
problem and addressing factors like personal values and needs, social interactions, personal
factors and political scenario. Sheth (1973), while addressing the psychological factors, specified
five processes which create differential expectations amongst buying centre individuals. This
includes background of the individuals, information sources, active search, perceptual distortion
and satisfaction with past purchases. Company-specific factors like company orientation, size and
degree of centralization also affect buying decisions (Sheth, 1973). The cognitive factors have an
impact on the affective components and may influence individual behaviour while making the
joint decision, clearly indicating that affect may drive the final decision.
According to Johnston and Bonoma (1981), dynamics and power relationships of the
group involved in organizational buying matters as power, politics and influence can be
central social variables in the buying centre. Six prominent influence strategies in a buying
JIBR centre have been proposed by Venkatesh, Kohli and Zaltman (1995), and their findings
10,2 indicate that the recommendation strategy is more effective than other influence strategies.
Also strategies attempting to intimidate, solicit or buy out tend to encounter resistance from
targets. This clearly indicates that affect has a role to play in B2B. Personal likes and
dislikes owing to social interactions may affect the decision in the B2B context as well.
While constructive models of OBB discussed above present a logical approach towards
174 decision-making, they fail to take into account the dynamism caused by parallel processing
of information.
The theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1977)
posits behaviour intention, an immediate antecedent of behaviour, to be drawn from
behaviour beliefs and normative beliefs. Attitude (behaviour belief) builds up based on the
evaluation that certain behaviour will lead to expected outcome, while subjective norm
(normative belief) builds up based on the motivation to comply or not comply with the
expectations on performance of a specific behaviour. In the B2B context, the aforementioned
factors can be replaced with corporate values, norms and rules.
These discussions highlight the fact that there is a significant impact of affective
influence on B2B decision-making. Given the traditional notion of B2B being highly
cognitive in nature, the aforementioned role of affect shows that B2B is a dual-process
approach involving affective and cognitive processes. Validating this duality of influences,
Kaufmann et al. (2017) have introduced the concept of multiple process approaches in B2B
decision-making by conceptualizing intuition as a two dimension construct involving
experience based and emotional processing. Their findings indicate that while rational
processing by the individual decision maker is positively related to financial and non-
financial performance of the supplier, experience-based and emotional processing show no
such relation. This emphasizes not only the use of financial/technical heuristics in B2B
decision-making but also the critical role of emotional processing in B2B. Further the
conclusion that multiple decision processes might interact validates the concept of
involvement of different classes of variables including affect, proposed earlier (Webster and
Wind, 1972; Sheth, 1973).
Drawing from both relationship models and social psychology, Berghäll (2003) proposed
a model of socio-economic exchange which captures the processes that take place within the
individual involved in exchange. This model proposes calculative commitment (based on
economic performance) and emotional commitment (based on relationships) as emotional
mediators to decision-making. Emotional commitment also has a positive impact on
calculative component. This study highlights the likely mechanism through which emotions
may play a role, as well as the nature of interactive processes affecting decisions.
In recent years, the role of emotions has also been studied from various angles such as
complaint behaviour on experiencing a negative service incident (Svari and Erling, 2012)
and customer switching (Roos and Friman, 2008). Negative experience which can be
completely attributed to the company, increases the likelihood of consumers complaining to
the company, while negative experiences which are attributable to the consumer are
generally reported anonymously through social media (Svari and Erling, 2012). It has also
been shown that emotional expressions feature in the switching process and negative
emotions act as a trigger to customer switching (Roos and Friman, 2008), indicating a clear
role of emotions in consequent customer actions and choices in the contextual or spatial
perspective. The study was done primarily to study the switching behaviour of telecom
customers wherein the trigger is generally in the form of annoyance, anxiety,
disappointment, dissatisfaction, distress, depression, rage, stress and tension with the kind
of service being provided by a mobile operator. During a negative service experience, the
consumer can have negative emotions towards the self (internal), the company (external) or B2B decision
the situation depending on who the consumer holds accountable for their experience. The making
negative emotions extend during service recovery phase as well when firms try to attend to
customer complaints (Svari et al., 2011). Because a negative service experience is also
usually experienced in an industrial buying situation, these phenomena will be relevant in
B2B, and we may extend the basic premise of the role of emotions to B2B decision-making.
It may be assumed that consumer emotions are not only influenced during the service
encounter but may also extend well beyond the service event conclusion and be influenced 175
by a totality of self and external agency factors. This may thus impact actions well
afterwards, and like rational influences be retained for use during customer choices such as
switching, etc. This implies an emotional residue which might be long term in nature and
impact and which may influence choices over time and not just as an immediate reaction.
Thus emotions could be a stable and common ingredient of B2B choices. This leads one to
suggest the following:
P1. Customer emotions act as an antecedent to customer behaviour/s.

Given the above, understanding what causes emotions may also be relevant. Further
exploration of literature shows “emotion”, which was once considered as a confounding
variable by social–cognitive psychologists, as it disrupted rational thought processes, is
now believed to motivate people to behave in ways that facilitate survival and well-being.
Humans depend on one another for their physical survival and psychological well-being,
and emotions constitute the currency of human relationships (Fitness, 2015). It is the human
cognition of environs that elicit arousal (flight or fight) and other varied emotions
experienced. The cognitive appraisal approach is an emerging theory according to which
evaluation of a situation combines with elicit-specific emotions (Watson and Spence, 2007).
The event appraisal is done on factors like outcome desirability, agency (self, other or
situation which may be relational in nature), fairness, certainty, attention and coping
potential. Emotion is seen as an outcome of this evaluation, particularly coping potential
(Scherer, 2009), and it leads to a specific behaviour. Watson and Spence (2007) found that
most of the variance in emotion is caused by outcome desirability and agency factors.
Akgün et al. (2013) studied the antecedents and consequences of emotional branding, and
their findings indicate that emotional branding improves brand loyalty, purchase intention
and affective commitment. It may be concluded from the aforementioned that customer
experience may lead to appraisals which include emotions, and they affect choices.
“Emotional” experience is a cause–effect process where there is always a trigger for
emotions. Based on this experience–appraisal–emotion sequence discussed above, it is
proposed that:
P2. Event appraisals such as customer experience episodes will lead to emotions being
generated.
Customer experience, a relatively new concept in marketing, compared to concepts like
attitude, satisfaction and brand, has as yet varied definitions. Verhoef et al. (2009) and
Lemon and Verhoef (2016) define it as the total experience across all stages of the purchase
cycle created by elements both within and outside the seller’s control. Richardson (2010)
considers it as the sum totality of the engagement experience by a customer over the entire
customer life cycle. While Gupta and Vajic (2000) stated that experience occurs when there is
knowledge acquisition from the interaction between consumer and supplier, the emotional
consequences are brought out by Rawson et al. (2013) who define it as the cumulative impact
of multiple touchpoints over time, resulting in a real relationship feeling. These findings are
JIBR also aligned with the findings of research conducted in neurosciences which suggest
10,2 decision-making to be associated with that part of the brain which deals with affect rather
than cognition (Damasio, 1994; Zajonc, 1980). Schmitt (2010) referred to it as the perceptions,
feelings and thoughts consumers have at the time of consumption and also the memory of
such experiences. Klaus and Maklan (2013) define it as the cognitive and affective
assessment of all direct and indirect interactions between the consumer and supplier.
176 The prominent dimensions of customer experience which come out from all these studies
are sensory, emotional, behavioural, relational and intellectual. Gentile et al. (2007) proposed
that customer experience should be created such that it contributes to value creation for
customers and the company. The customer experience dimensions they explored were
sensory, emotional, cognitive, pragmatic, lifestyle and relational. Schmitt (1999) proposed
five experiential modules to be relevant for experiential marketing. These included sensory
experiences (Sense), affective experiences (Feel), creative cognitive experiences (Think),
lifestyles, physical experiences and behaviours (Act) and social identity experiences (Relate).
While cognitive, sensory and affective dimensions have been considered in almost all
studies of customer experience (Klaus and Maklan, 2013; Rose et al., 2011; Frow and Payne,
2007), Verhoef et al. (2009) included the relational dimension and Puccinelli et al. (2009)
included consumer attitude amongst other dimensions. Webster and Wind (1972) in their
OBB model specified non-task variables as a significant part of decision-making as
discussed above. Further, Czinkota et al. (2014) proposed that there are multiple processes
which are interactive. In this context, the multiplicity of processes is clearly delineated by
Sheth (1973) when he integrates functional, social, emotional, situational and curiosity
criteria as part of the B2B decision-making. While functional criteria represent the product-
and company-specific factors in the model, social criteria are represented by the conflict-
resolution activities, active search indicates the curiosity criteria and perceptual distortions
indicate the emotional aspect. The situational criteria represented in the model imply factors
other than rational behaviour.
The multiplicity of criteria in the B2B situation is borne by various studies over the years
Czinkota et al. (2014). A comparison of the criteria proposed by various models with
Schmitt’s proposal of sensory, relational, emotional, behavioural and intellectual dimensions
shows that Schmitt captures most of these criteria under these five heads. Each of these five
heads also finds adequate support from the models proposed in the past; for example,
sensory and functional reflecting task-related aspects of Webster and Wind (1972) or
functional aspects of model proposed by Sheth (1975), emotional dimension supported by
non-task variables of Webster and Wind (1972) and emotional dimension proposed by
Gentile et al (2007) and Sheth (1975). Similarly, relational and behavioural dimensions in the
model proposed by Webster and Wind (1972) when they talk about non-task factors like
social, politics, etc. The prominent customer experience dimension which stand out from all
these studies can be grouped under the five experiential modules suggested by Schmitt. The
conceptualization of experience by Schmitt is identified as the most comprehensive
dimensionalization, and given its support in earlier OBB literature, this conceptualization is
proposed as a suitable framework for representing CX in B2B. It is proposed that:
P3. Customer experience in B2B has sensory, relational, emotional, behavioural and
intellectual dimensions.
Given that CX would be appraised and will have emotional consequences for choice, it will
be relevant to explore the mechanism of how these factors lead to B2B choices. The notion of
perceived value has long been considered as a useful framework for understanding
consumer decisions. Carlson et al. (2015) explored the notion of perceived value while
exploring key determinants which drive future intentions of group travellers. Their findings B2B decision
indicate perceived value of previous experience a key construct for future travel intentions. making
The value dimensions empirically tested by them include social, emotional, monetary,
functional, novelty and convenience value. The decision mechanism seems to therefore
involve a residual part of the experience in the psyche, which may lead to evaluations of the
services provided, much after the experience, and it may lead to decisions such as switching
and other choices. With the common notion of value expectations and customer-perceived
value emerging from consumption being a determinant of choices such as repeat purchase, 177
the argument may be extended to cover consumer experience-based consequences such as
repeat purchase. Thus, it may be assumed that experiences lead to some evaluation akin to
value (Woodruff, 1997; Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Gale and Wood, 1994), which, in turn,
leads to choices. Various scholars have interpreted and defined customer value differently. It
was conceptualized by Zeithaml (1988) as a customer’s perception of what they get as
compared to what is given away by them. Anderson and Sullivan (1993) conceptualized it as
perceived worth in monetary units of benefits received by the customer, while Gale and
Wood (1994) conceptualized it as a market-perceived quality vs product price. Butz and
Goodstein (1996) brought in the affective behavioural aspects and conceptualized it as an
emotional bond between customer and producer after consumption of the product. Smith
and Colgate (2007) expanded beyond the cost-sacrifice concept for defining value and
suggested that value is derived not only post purchase of the product or service but also
during the entire purchase cycle. Hence sources of customer value are not limited to the
product but have extended to information, interactions, ownership and environment. A
consumer evaluates not only the cost and functional value but also the symbolic and
experiential value. This evaluation leads to the formation of a value perception. Palmatier
(2008) developed a model of customer value in B2B based on relationship quality, contact
density and contact authority. Their findings indicate that value from interfirm
relationships derives both from the quality of customer ties (trust, commitment, etc.) and the
interactions between relational drivers. This indicates that the experience during a relational
transaction is evaluated by the customer and an experiential value is derived from it.
Based on these discussions and drawing from the organizational buying behaviour
models (Webster and Wind, 1972; Sheth, 1973) and value frameworks in the literature, this
study considers social, emotional, monetary and functional dimensions relevant to B2B, and
it is proposed that:
P4. Customer experience influences experiential value perceived by B2B consumer.

As mentioned earlier, the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein and
Ajzen, 1977) posits behaviour intention, an immediate antecedent of behaviour, to be drawn
from behaviour beliefs and normative beliefs. It was also mentioned that attitude (behaviour
belief) builds up based on the evaluation that certain behaviour will lead to an expected
outcome, while subjective norm (normative belief) builds up based on the motivation to
comply or not comply with the expectations on the performance of a specific behaviour. This
can be compared to the normative significance stage in Scherer’s model (Scherer, 2009),
wherein an overall assessment of the event is carried out and its compatibility assessed with
self-concept, values, social norms and moral rules. In the B2B context, these can be replaced
with corporate values, norms and rules. This model was further improved by
conceptualizing the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) which introduced perceived
behavioural control as a moderator to behavioural intention and behaviour. This takes into
consideration the belief that people have about their control on performing a behaviour.
JIBR The behaviour model integrating attitude (experiential and instrumental), perceived
10,2 norm (injunctive and descriptive) and personal agency (perceived control and self-efficacy)
as antecedents of behavioural intention leading to a specific behaviour has been extensively
researched and appears to be an established model to explain human behaviour.
With the concept of experience leading to behavioural intention, a new school of thought
has started building up in the behaviour intention theory. Cohen and Reed (2004, 2006),
178 while discussing the multiple pathway anchoring and adjustment model of attitude, have
highlighted various mechanisms of attitude development which include direct/imagined
experience with the object. Analytical attitude construction, analogical/categorical
reasoning, value-driven attitudes and social identity-based attitude generation further
develop this theory. Their findings indicated that a combination of socially anchored
attitude formation mechanism and semantically linked retrieval cue leads to behaviour
rather than a coexisting initial attitude alone. While their framework proposes an integrative
treatment of attitude formation, storage, retrieval and reliance, it also addresses the
traditional view of attitude. They argue that while evaluative judgements are context-
specific, stored attitude are rarely sufficiently diagnostic to guide behaviour and provide a
better indication of actual behaviour. Their model proposes an anchoring and adjustment
process instead of a pure constructive process as proposed in the integrated behaviour
models. Inconsistency between one’s evaluative judgement and one’s feeling leads to
attitude ambivalence with consequent questions about their influence on final choices made
by the consumer (Fabrigar et al., 2005; Sengupta and Johar, 2002). Hence there is a need to
conceptualize a broader construct leading to behavioural intention instead of attitude,
possibly incorporating the contextual (experiential) anchoring of evaluative processes
proposed by Cohen and Reed. This study posits experience value (EV) as a broader and
more comprehensive construct leading to behavioural intention specific to a conscious
behaviour. The higher-order cognition process as defined in the model proposed in this
study leads to experiential value (EV) which is pegged or anchored to a specific product,
service or experiential context in the long-term memory to which the residual customer
experience is also pegged. Purchase intention is the behavioural intention explored in this
study, and it is proposed that:
P5. Experiential value influences purchase intention in B2B.

Customer experience model

The above discussions (P1 and P2) indicate that emotions have a role to play in consumer
behaviour and emotions act as an antecedent to customer experience. Emotions along with
other dimensions of customer experience act as an antecedent to experiential value (P3 and
P4), leading to purchase intentions (proposition 5). While the theory of reasoned action
(Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and the multiple pathway model (Cohen and Reed, 2006) describe
the consumer evaluation process to a great extent, this study extends the framework to
include customer emotions and construct an overall value framework from relevant
contextually grounded choice frameworks, addressing the limitations of the attitude model.
Customer experience in the B2B scenario is a holistic construct that has both cognitive
and affective dimensions as discussed above. The cognitive dimension comprises the
physical element in terms of features, quality and price of the supplier’s offering, and
affective dimension is the emotional element involving customer feelings about the supplier
and their offering after interacting with them. Consumers evaluate their experience along
five dimensions of customer experience – sensory, emotional, behavioural, intellectual and
relational – while assigning a functional, symbolic, cost and emotional value to that
experience. The overall experiential value is then determined by considering each of the B2B decision
value dimensions, which in turn, leads to purchase intention of the consumer. making
The customer experience model proposed for a B2B scenario is represented in Figure 1.
To seek further exploration of the concepts adopted from the literature for customer
experience and experiential value along with their relationship with purchase intentions and
as an initial empirical exploration of the phenomenon, exploratory research was planned to
explore in depth the dimensionality and nature of constructs proposed above. In addition to
this, it would help in identifying other factors which may impact customer experience and 179
experiential value while deepening the insight into nature of the phenomena at the same
time.

Research methodology
Qualitative research has been found useful to gain insights for developing an approach to
the problem. Usually laddering and open-ended questions asked during this method help
researchers identify the root cause factors relevant to the situation in hand. McCracken
(1988) in his book The Long Interview describes an interview method as the most powerful
tool in qualitative research, as it can help a researcher step into the mind of the respondent
and be able to experience the situation from their viewpoint. There are various methods for
qualitative research like participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups and so
on. We have used the in-depth interview method for our research.
This study used purposive sampling method to identify a sample of ten respondents
involved in vendor choice process either as a buyer or a seller. Purposive sampling involves
identifying samples which are relevant to the research questions (Lee and Lings, 2008). All
the ten respondents are residents in India where the interviews were conducted. A
homogeneous mix of respondents working in B2B or both B2B and B2C industries was
identified.
Although there is no specific recommendation on the sample size for qualitative research,
it is suggested that the interview process should cease once similar kind of data starts
building up and saturation is reached. In developing the sample for this study, the primary
aim was to maximize diversity in terms of the role and type of industry the sample belonged
to so that customer experience dimensions could be verified across different industries,
ruling out the possibility of bias in the results. Because selecting decision makers and
influencers for this study was critical, senior managers with an experience of more than 15
years in their profession were targeted. Three techniques of exploratory research were

Funconal
Value
Sensory
Symbolic
Value

Relaonal

Customer Experience Purchase

Emoonal
Experience Value Intenon

Behaviour

Cost Figure 1.
Value
Intellectual Customer experience
Emoonal
Value model for B2B
JIBR adopted during the study – highly structured repertory grid method, with each interview
10,2 lasting about 60 min; semi-structured personal interviews lasting about 30 min for half the
number of respondents; and unstructured interviews lasting about 30 min for the remaining
respondents of the sample. All interviews were conducted face to face, and 15-h worth of
material was generated at the end. The industry and role of each respondent are
summarized in Table I.
180 The repertory grid technique is useful when respondents know the answer indirectly,
and the tacit knowledge of the respondent needs to be elicited to obtain a true picture. This
method has been widely used by researchers (Lemke, Clark and Wilson, 2011; Hair et al.,
2009). Kelly (1955) developed this method while working on the personal construct theory. It
helps the respondent uncover constructs in their own way without much intervention from
the interviewer. This study followed the triadic methodology used by Lemke et al. (2011)
while using the repertory grid method with the respondents.
The first step involved asking the respondent to identify three companies with which he
had good experience, three with which he had bad experience and three with which he had
an average experience. This resulted in a total of nine companies being identified by the
respondent. Nine flash cards, one for each company, were prepared for further discussion
with the respondents. A repertory grid was constructed with 11 columns, with the first
column labelled as the construct pole and the last column labelled as the contrast pole. The
remaining nine columns were assigned to one company each.
In line with Kelly’s triadic method, three cards were chosen at random and shown to the
respondent. The respondent was asked what was similar in two of these companies and
missing in the third one in terms of his experience with them. The response received was
recorded in the construct pole column. The respondent was then asked what would be the
opposite of what he just mentioned and this was recorded in the contrast pole column. The
respondent was then asked to rate each of the nine companies on a five-point scale, where 1
represented poor experience and 5 represented excellent experience. These ratings were
recorded in the cell against each company, and the process was repeated with the next set of
three random cards. A series of constructs were generated at the end of the interview.
Open-ended questions were asked during the semi-structured interview to cover all aspects
of the customer experience model which were under exploration. In situations where some of
the dimensions of experience or value were not highlighted by the respondents, a laddering
technique was used to further probe and check if the respondent really did not consider it
relevant or if articulating it was a challenge. For the unstructured interviews, views on
proposed antecedents of vendor experience and purchase intention as per the customer
experience model for B2B were shared with the respondents who were then asked to share their

Respondent Industry B2B interactions type Role

1 Telecom service provider Product and services Sourcing

2 Soft skills trainings Services Marketing
3 IT Services Marketing
4 IT Product and services Marketing
5 Footwear Product Marketing
6 Telecom service provider Product and services Sourcing
7 IT Product and services Operations
Table I. 8 Telecom vendor Product and services Operations
Qualitative study 9 Telecom vendor Product and services Operations
sample 10 IT Services Operations
views and experience on what was stated. Notes were taken for all the interviews and some of B2B decision
the interviews were recorded as well with permission from the respondent. making
Data analysis
The repertory technique generated about 20 constructs in total from the respondents. There
were some constructs which implied the same meaning in all the interviews. Such raw
constructs were grouped and a verbal label was given to them thematically, given the
context of the study. Similarly, other raw constructs which were elicited during the
181
interview were also given a more meaningful verbal label. An optimized and reduced
construct list of about 17 constructs evolved finally from the tabulation of labels on the
similarity of the thematic representation and/or grouping under similar but more
comprehensive dimension. Each of these 17 constructs was then analysed for its relevance
and a conceptual association with the dimensions of customer experience as per the model
was proposed. Content analysis method (Curtis et al., 2008) was adopted to place the
constructs into each of the customer experience and experiential value dimension. The
analysis also aimed at identifying any new dimension of customer experience which may
emerge from the aforementioned 17 constructs. Each of these customer experience
dimensions was then mapped to relevant dimensions of customer EV in the context of
respondents’ reported construct. Some of the constructs affected more than one dimension of
customer experience and experiential value. For example, “response time” and “on-time
delivery” lead to both intellectual and behavioural experience as per the linkages expressed
by respondents. On-time delivery or a good response time helps the buyer meet his own
commitments on time and is in line with what was expected from the vendor as per
contract – hence this can be classified as an intellectual experience (based on rational
thought process). It also triggers behavioural experience – which is how an individual
behaves after experiencing the offering, and experiencing that professional goals are also
met in terms of task/goal achievement in a satisfactory way. Because in this case the “time
of delivery” is as per expectation, the buyer would like to continue the association with this
vendor. This experience by the buyer is assessed both at intellectual and behavioural levels
and the value derived is both functional (it meets the contractual obligations) and emotional
(as the vendor delivered on time, the buyer may experience that this leads to personal goal
achievement and rewards at the workplace, and the buyer will prefer this vendor and will
like to continue the association). The data analysis of raw constructs generated from
repertory grid is shown in Figure 2 (colours in the figure are used to show how similar raw
constructs were grouped into one to optimize the final construct list [reduced constructs]).
Notes taken during the interviews were reviewed along with the recordings. Among the
interesting facts which came up on different aspects of B2B engagements during these
discussions, a few are highlighted below. One of the respondents mentioned:
Customers are ready to pay a premium if they have confidence on the vendor capabilities.
Relationship builds over a period of time. Assessment does not matter. A vendor assessed at a
lower level during evaluation may be awarded a contract if the company has a better “confidence”
on their capability.
This indicates that in addition to cognitive factors, intuitive factors (Kaufmann et al., 2017)
and affective factors (Damasio, 1994; Zajonc, 1980; Klaus and Maklan, 2013) also have a role
to play in B2B relationships. This was further supplemented by the following remarks from
another respondent:
Assessment is a formality as decisions would be at top level. However basic criteria should be
met. Soft skills come into picture when the competition is neck to neck. In deciding a vendor, 90%
JIBR Raw Constructs Reduced Constructs Experience Dimension Value Dimension
10,2 Intellectual, Funconal,
Response Time Good Response Time Behavioural Emoonal
High Commitment Mutual Commitment Behavioural Emoonal
Intellectual, Funconal,
On Time Delivery Timely delivery Behavioural Emoonal
182 High Quality Product/ Service Quality Intellectual Funconal
Good interpersonal relaons Interpersonal Relaons Emoonal Emoonal
High Funconality - forward
and backward integraon Product funconality Intellectual Funconal
Good Product Roadmap Product Roadmap Intellectual Funconal
Innovaon/ Future
High investment in R&D investments Intellectual Funconal
Highly compable with other Compability with other
products products in the system Intellectual Funconal
Company representaves can
be trusted as per previous Behavioural, Funconal,
experience Trust Intellectual Emoonal
Comfortable while dealing with
representaves of the Comfort Level in personal
company dealings Emoonal Emoonal
Upgradable technology leading
to longer shelf life Product shelf life Intellectual Funconal
High instuonal respect and Respect and Support to
support representaves Behavioural Emoonal
High Commitment to training
Good at operaonal
management
Onme payments with no
followups Timely payments Intellectual Cost
Good value systems of the
instute Organizaon values Relaonal Symbolic
Good hospitality to vising
faculty
High ethics in the instute with
Figure 2.
low levels of polics Organizaon culture Relaonal Symbolic
Repertory grid data
Conducive training room and
analysis
instute infrastructure Organizaon Infrastructure Sensory Emoonal

of the decision is made based on functional aspects, quality, price etc. The last 10% to clinch a
deal depends on the relationships between the vendor organization and the company.
Another respondent shared similar insights on the affective part in B2B relations:
Regular customers are more understanding. Culture impacts experience. Relationship matters and
is prime decider. Quality, price etc. are the qualifying criteria.
From these discussions, it emerges that cognitive factors like price, quality, warranty, etc.
are hygiene factors, while affective factors like relationships, emotional bond between
vendor and the consumer play deciding role in B2B transactions.
 In total, 59 raw constructs evolved from these interviews which could be reduced to B2B decision
about 28 constructs for further analysis. The reduction principle used was to group making
thematically similar raw constructs under one group and a meaning assigned to it. These
were then linked to the customer experience dimensions proposed by us, using the content
analysis method (Curtis et al., 2008), to verify whether all dimensions were covered and to
also check whether any new dimension evolved from our study. Each customer experience
dimension was then mapped to relevant dimensions of customer EV in the context of
respondents’ construct. The data analysis of raw constructs generated from these interviews 183
is shown in Figure 3 (colours in the figure are used to show how similar raw constructs were
grouped into one to optimize the final construct list [reduced constructs]).
The unstructured discussions stressed on other concepts in the literature which could not
be covered during personal interviews and repertory techniques. These included discussions
on the effect of factors like primacy/recency on EV and the role of mediators like culture,
demographics, social and psychological factors on purchase intention. The concepts
discussed and inference drawn from these discussions are summarized in Table II.

Findings
The findings of this study indicate that emotions have a role to play in B2B decision-
making. Further it was found that all constructs elicited by respondents during the study
could be linked to customer experience dimensions proposed in the customer experience
model for B2B. The findings of the literature on customer experience (Schmitt, 1999; Gentile
et al., 2007; Klaus and Maklan, 2013; Rose et al., 2011; Frow and Payne, 2007; Verhoef et al.,
2009; Puccinelli et al., 2009), experiential value (Woodruff, 1997; Anderson and Sullivan,
1993; Gale and Wood, 1994; Butz and Goodstein, 1996; Smith and Colgate, 2007) and
behavioural intent (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1977; Ajzen, 1985; Cohen
and Reed II, 2004, 2006; Fabrigar et al., 2005; Sengupta and Johar, 2002) strongly supports
the findings from qualitative research and point towards the need to test these propositions
as hypothesis.
Literary evidence on customer value having both cognitive and affective dimensions is
discussed in the literature review section. Some of the affect-inducing dimensions like
relationship, courtesy and word of mouth, which were highlighted by the respondents
during this research, can be associated with the affective dimensions already discussed by
Kim et al. (2008) and Parasuraman et al. (1985). This further reinforces the proposed model
wherein customer experience and experiential value have been conceptualized to have both
cognitive and affective components. It was also found that affective elements are relevant in
B2B scenarios and hence the proposed model can be explored further.
Discussions also highlighted that customer experience is relevant in the decision-making
process and has a role to play when the experiential value is arrived at. While social and
personal factors had a negligible role, culture and psychological factors influence
experiential value along with other factors like primacy, recency and asymmetric nature of
negative emotions. Few comments provided by respondents which support the presence of
primacy and recency factors in a B2B scenario are reproduced below:
First meeting is always important as we can make out how serious a vendor is. It also helps to get
clarity on the product and see if it meets our requirement.

We take feedback from the operations team about how good or bad a vendor support has been in
the past before taking a decision on extending a contract. This helps us in better negotiation of
price and contract terms in case we want to extend a contract or change the vendor if there are too
many complaints and miserable performance by the vendor.
JIBR
10,2

184

Figure 3.
Personal interview
data analysis
Concept discussed Questions (B2B scenario) Inference
B2B decision
making
Overall value of an Remembers all interactions As a seller, all interactions are important because
offering during the purchase cycle you never know which one will be remembered
First experience and a few First experience (primacy) and ongoing
others are all which are experiences should be good (recency)
remembered
Effect of negative incident in Negative incidents can have a greater effect 185
the current interaction compared to positive ones
Role of mediators in the Social (household, peers) Has no role, may be because a thorough
final decision evaluation is done
Cultural (culture, social class) Affects the final decision
Personal (age, occupation, Has no role, may be because a thorough
education) evaluation is done
Psychological (beliefs, Affects the final decision
motivation) Table II.
Miscellaneous factors Risk appetite Risk appetite is low as people want to play safe Unstructured
influencing the B2B Compromised decision/role of There is always an overriding factor discussions data
decision hierarchy analysis

There are instances where we do not prefer a vendor because of a previous bad experience in
another country.

There was one incident where a contract came up for renewal and a global RFP was floated. All of
us from the purchase committee recommended a specific vendor due to the issues we were facing
with the incumbent supplier. However the top management decided to continue with the
incumbent.
These comments indicate that the first meeting with the vendor is important, as customers
expect them to be fully aware of their requirements and come prepared with a customized
solution. Similarly, feedback is taken from the teams which have been served by the vendor.
While positive feedback helps vendors maintain or slightly improve their chances of being
shortlisted, negative feedback weakens their position and negotiation power. Any positive
or negative incident which would have happened in the recent past will have chances of
influencing the negotiation. Extant literature also suggests that the overall evaluation is
strongly influenced by momentary experiences at most intense and final interactions (Ariely
and Carmon, 2000; Fredrickson and Kahneman, 1993; Varey and Kahneman, 1992). These
discussions also indicated the role of group dynamics and power relationships (Johnston and
Bonoma, 1981) that influence the purchase intent.
Primacy and recency, which constitute feedback from a previous experience, affect the
experiential value derived from the ongoing experience and hence moderate the path
between customer experience and experiential value. Similarly, individual factors, primarily
attitude, culture or background of the individuals in a buying centre, will affect the way an
experience is interpreted and hence moderate the path between customer experience and
experiential value. Factors like power relationships and group dynamics come into play
when members of the buying centre come together to arrive at a purchase decision (Jackson
et al., 1984; Kohli, 1989). These factors hence moderate the path between experiential value
and purchase intention.
A revised customer experience model for B2B based on these findings is proposed in
Figure 4.
JIBR Funconal
Value
10,2 Sensory
Symbolic
Value

Relaonal

186 Emoonal
Customer
Experience
Experience
Value
Purchase
Intenon

Behaviour

Cost
Moderators Value Moderators
Figure 4. Intellectual like
Emoonal
like
Primacy, Group
Revised customer Value Dynamics,
Recency,
experience model for Individual Power
B2B Factors relaonships

Academic contributions
Extensive literature available on organizational buying behaviour primarily focusses on the
buying process adopted in the industry, people involved in the buying centre, types of
purchases, conflicts and power dynamics in the buying centre and the vendor–buyer
relationships. While various viewpoints have been integrated into different organizational
buying behaviour models in the past, a customer experience model highlighting the
experiential value in an organizational set-up is still unexplored. This study attempts to add to
the existing knowledge of customer experience by exploring its dimensions and bridging all
known dimensions to build a more comprehensive customer experience model, especially for
the B2B industry. This study identifies the role of specific customer experience dimensions in
the B2B environment and proposes the role and mechanism of emotional factors affecting the
decision-making process in B2B exchange. The B2B product evaluation has often been
considered a rational evaluation. Preliminary investigations during this study strongly support
the fact that emotional factors influence decision-making in B2B markets as well. This study
also demonstrates the use of the repertory grid technique to identify constructs relevant to
customer experience and maps them to the experience and value dimensions.

Managerial contributions
This study helps marketers understand customer experience dimensions and how
experiential value encompasses all value components of customer experience in the B2B
market. Marketers can use the findings from this research which includes hitherto little
explored dimensions of customer experience, to strategize their offering so as to hit the right
emotional chord with consumer. To be relevant and competitive in the market, marketers
need to ensure that customers always have a positive experience at all touchpoints right
from the start of the purchase cycle to its end.

Limitations and future research direction

Pine and Gilmore (1998) argue that the world economy has progressed through three levels –
the earliest stage being commodity economy which involved extracting substances from the
world around us, followed by manufacturing economy where products were made and lastly
the service economy which involved intangible deliverables. According to them we have B2B decision
now entered the fourth stage of experience economy where all other factors like cost, after- making
sales support, product features, quality, etc. have become hygiene factors, and customer
experience is the differentiating factor for a product choice. Customer experience has
developed as an important construct of consumer behaviour and industries, and scholars are
showing interest because it directly affects the overall sales. Our study indicates that
emotions do play a role in B2B decision-making. Researchers can further explore this area
by carrying out an empirical study to confirm the existence of emotions in a B2B scenario.
187
The model proposed by us can be further refined and tested to check its validity in global
markets. The study can also be used by marketing practitioners in the industry to improve
the win probability of their products or services by applying these findings to strengthen
their emotional bond with existing and new customers.

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Further reading
Sheth, J.N. (1996), “Organizational buying behavior: past performance and future expectations”, Journal
of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 11 Nos 3/4, pp. 7-24.

Corresponding author
Santosh Kumar Pandey can be contacted at: [email protected]

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