Knowledge-Based e-Procurement Systems to Negotiate Logistics Services

Purpose - The paper discusses e-procurement of logistics services by negotiation and examines how the process performance is affect by the style that companies adopt to support this task and the complexity of the service description. Performance is evaluated in terms of both substantive and subjective outcomes. Several hypotheses are tested, which are derived from the existing literature and concern the impact that specific design parameters have on certain performance. The analysis, which considers also behavioral issues, is a first step to develop models of logistics services procurement and a knowledge base component of an intelligent e-procurement system. Design/methodology/approach - Our research is based on laboratory experiments. Transactions were conducted on an ad-hoc designed business case and performed by students and junior researchers on a web-based platform. We adopted a 2x2 research design, whose experimental factors (considered as independent variables) were the level of complexity used in describing the logistics service and the style adopted by buyers in conducting the negotiation. As dependent variables we assumed two substantive outcomes, directly measured, and four performances related to behavioral issues, operationalized through items adapted from the literature and assessed via a questionnaire. Results were analyzed using an explorative factor analysis and hypotheses tested via ANOVA. Originality/value - The linkages between the features of the transaction environment and negotiation style, and the achieved performances have been widely investigated by scholars, especially in the last decade, when the pervasiveness of information and communication technologies put emphasis on the nexus between the choice of a specific market mechanism and the effects on actors' behavior. This study, however, is innovative in that it considers multi-attribute mechanisms and recurs to laboratory experiments, which allows different settings to be compared, by using the same business case and technological platform, thus avoiding biases due to features other than the setting themselves. Practical implications - The aim of this study is to examine how the design of the system that companies use in procurement of logistics services and the adoption of a specific negotiation style affect the process performance. Based on our research, we provide companies with guidelines to enhance the overall performance, through a better design of e-procurement systems and the adoption of more effective negotiation styles.