Johnston, Wesley J.

Wesley J. Johnston is a Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at Georgia State University and has been the editor of Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing. His major research interest is in the area of industrial marketing. He has particularly focused on the issues of buying centers, business-to-business communication, selection and motivation of salesforces, and export development.

Johnston, Wesley J. and Thomas V. Bonoma, "The Buying Center: Structure and Interaction Patterns," Journal-of-Marketing, Vol.45 (Summer 1981) pp.143-156.

This article positions itself as the first step toward measurable dimensions of buying center. After being introduced in Patrick Robinson, Charles Faris, and Jerry Wind's Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing (1967), the concept of buying center had not been clearly understood. Previous studies only depicted buying center as a complex, multiperson group, while its characteristics, structure, operations and dynamics remained unknown. Thus, the authors proposed a systems approach to understand one aspect of the complex interactions taking place in industrial buying, namely communication network within buying center.

Regarding buying center as a system composed of many dyadic interactions within the context of a formal organization, the authors proposed five measurement dimensions to characterize a buying center's communication network:

1) Vertical Involvement: Number of levels of the organization's authority hierarchy exerting influence and communicating within the buying center.

2) Lateral Involvement: Number of separate departments, divisions, or firms functional areas involved in the purchase decision.

3) Extensivity: Total number of individuals involved in the buying communication network.

4) Connectedness: Degree to which the members of the buying center are linked with each other by directed communications concerning the purchase.

5) Centrality: Sum of the purchasing manger's purchase communications, both sent and received, weighted by the total number of individuals in the buying center.

In order to demonstrate the nomological validity of their proposed measurement dimensions, the authors have empirically shown that the relationship between these dimensions and several structural and situational variables of industrial buying was compatible to the relationship found in previous studies on buying center. For example, if the vertical and lateral involvement can truly reflect the dynamics within a buying center, according to available literature, these two dimensions would be associated with purchase situational variables. Thus, the authors provided evidence that higher purchase importance, complexity, and novelty tended to occur with more vertical and lateral involvement.

This article in fact served as a very important foundation for Professor Johnston's thesis in a later article in Journal of Business Research (Jun 1982) that industrial buying center should be studied in integrated framework, rather than with narrow focus on single issues. Even after 15 years, Professor Johnston still included communication networks as an important component in his integrated framework of organization buying behavior in Journal of Business Research (Jan 1996).

Other Publications:

Robey, Daniel and Johnston, Wesley J, "Lateral Influences and Vertical Authority in Organizational Buying," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (1977) v6n6, 451-462

Bonoma, Thomas V and Johnston, "The Social Psychology of Industrial Buying and Selling," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Aug. 1978) v7n4, 213-224

Bonoma, Thomas V and Johnston, Wesley J, "Locus of Control, Trust, and Decision Making," Decision-Sciences. (Jan. 1979) v10n1, 39-56

Bonoma, Thomas V and Johnston, Wesley J, "Decision Making Under Uncertainty: A Direct Measurement Approach," Journal-of-Consumer-Research. (Sept. 1979) v6n2, 177-191

Johnston, Wesley J and Cooper, Martha, "Analyzing the Industrial Salesforce Selection Process," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Apr 1981) v10n2, pp. 139-147

Johnston, Wesley J, "Real-World Strategic Planning Isn't as Neat as Its Theory," Marketing-News. (Jun 26, 1981) v14n26(Section 2), p. 2

Johnston, Wesley J and Bonoma, Thomas V, "Purchase Process for Capital Equipment and Services," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Oct 1981) v10n4, pp. 253-264

Czinkota, Michael R and Johnston, Wesley J, "Segmenting U.S. Firms for Export Development," Journal-of-Business-Research. (Dec 1981) v9n4, pp. 353-365

Johnston, Wesley J and Spekman, Robert E, "Industrial Buying Behavior: A Need for an Integrative Approach," Journal-of-Business-Research. (Jun 1982) v10n2, pp. 135-146

Czinkota, Michael R and Johnston, Wesley J, "Exporting: Does Sales Volume Make a Difference?" Journal-of-International-Business-Studies. (Spring/Summer 1983) v14n1, pp. 147-153

Johnston, Wesley J and Shields, Michael D, "Evaluating the Newer Salesperson," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Jul 1983) v12n3, pp. 193-199

Czinkota, Michael R and Johnston, Wesley J, "Choosing a Career and Specialty: When Do Students Decide?" Health-Care-Management-Review. (Fall 1983) v8n4, pp. 43-51

Johnston, Wesley J, "Leaders in Sales and Sales Management," Journal-of-Personal-Selling-and-Sales-Management. (May 1984) v4n1, pp. 40-41

Johnston, Wesley J and Czinkota, Michael R, "Export Attitudes of Industrial Manufacturers," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (May 1985) v14n2, pp. 123-132

Hutt, Michael D; Johnston, Wesley J and Ronchetto, John R Jr, "Selling Centers and Buying Centers: Formulating Strategic Exchange Patterns," Journal-of-Personal-Selling-and-Sales-Management. (May 1985) v5n1, pp. 33-40

Reid, Stan D; Czinkota, Michael R and Johnston, Wesley J, "Exporting: Does Sales Volume Make a Difference? -Comment/Reply," Journal-of-International-Business-Studies. (Summer 1985) v16n2, pp. 153-161

Spekman, Robert E and Johnston, Wesley J, "Relationship Management: Managing the Selling and the Buying Interface," Journal-of-Business-Research. (Dec 1986) v14n6, pp. 519-531

Johnston, Wesley J and Yoon, Heon D, "Reacting to a Textile & Apparel Trade Enforcement Act," International-Marketing-Review. (Spring 1987) v4n1, pp. 42-51

Dadzie, Kofi Q and Johnston, Wesley J, "Innovative Automation Technology in Corporate Warehousing Logistics," Journal-of-Business-Logistics. (1991) v12n1, pp. 63-82

Johnston, Wesley J and Kim, Keysuk, "Performance, attribution, and expectancy linkages in personal selling," Journal-of-Marketing. (Oct 1994) v58n4, pp. 68-81

Lohtia, Ritu; Johnston, Wesley J and Aab, Linda, "Creating an effective print advertisement for the China market: Analysis and advice," Journal-of-Global-Marketing. (1994) v8n2, pp. 7-29

Aab, Linda; Johnston, Wesley J and Lohtia, Ritu, "Building relationships through advertising," Marketing-Management. (Summer 1995) v4n1, pp. 32-38

Lohtia, Ritu; Johnston, Wesley J and Aab, Linda, "Business-to-business advertising: What are the dimensions of an effective print ad?" Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Oct 1995) v24n5, pp. 369-378

Johnston, Wesley J, and Lewin, Jeffrey E, "Organizational buying behavior: Toward an integrative framework," Journal-of-Business-Research. (Jan 1996) v35n1, pp. 1-15

Gilliland, David I. and Johnston, Wesley J., "Toward a model of business-to-business marketing communications effects," Industrial-Marketing-Management. (Jan 1997) v26n1, pp. 15-29

Johnston, Wesley J, and Lewin, Jeffrey E., "Advances in industrial marketing theory and research from the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing," Journal-of-Business-Research. (Mar 1997) v38n3, pp. 199-209

Lewin, Jeffrey E., and Johnston, Wesley J., "Relationship marketing theory in practice: A case study," Journal-of-Business-Research (May 1997) v39n1, pp. 23-31