Harold W. Fox

Strategic Procurement Planning across the Product’s Sales Cycle: A Conceptualization

As a means to assist purchasing managers in formulating and implementing more timely and effective procurement strategies across a product’s sales cycle, the authors synthesize, substantially expand, and update previous Product Life Cycle (PLC)purchasing strategy (PS) models by presenting 210 PSs classified according to five PLC stages and seventeen intradepartmental, interdepartmental, and external relations. By depicting procurement in a systems perspective, the authors’ model makes explicit purchasing’s relationship with other functions of the firm in the decision-making process. This is especially opportune, because procurement is currently assuming top-management stature in many firms. Managerial and research implications are discussed.

Quasi-Boards—Guidance without Governance

A panel of counselors can help the owner of a privately held concern compensate for a lack of impartial advice. A disclosure of the actual give-and-take during a session in a small company that has used such an arrangement for five years will demonstrate the effectiveness of the quasi-board.

Demonstrating the Relevance of Academic Concepts

Marketing executives, professors, and students clamor to make education more practical. A very simple yet effective approach toward that end is to deduce academic concepts from current events in the pragmatic world of marketing. This approach “legitimatizes” the study of marketing principles for many students and thereby motivates these students to learn. Motivation to learn may be heightened if the lecture is pleasant instead of pompous. The intended (and often realized) change of behavior includes observation, search, and creation of ways to relate marketing practices to marketing principles.

A Comparison of Preferences Concerning the Purchase of Domestic Products Vs. Imports: United States and Jamaica

This paper examines the preferences of American and Jamaican consumers toward certain locally produced products vs. imports. Emphasis is placed on factors influencing purchase decisions, most preferred domestic and import categories, and methods for creating more interest in locally produced products. Implications for marketing practitioners are provided along with suggestions for future research.

Constructs in Marketing: A Dynamic Pattern

Dialectical logic seems to help explain successive advents and denigrations of marketing constructs. Apparently, constructs arise in logical sequence, building on their predecessors. This systematization can facilitate the study of marketing.