Technical specifications, product standards, and industrial buyer behavior

This paper is a broad-based empirical investigation of the role of industry-wide technical product standards. Our study attempted to establish if subscription to industrywide standards in procurement decision making, altered the relative importance of nontechnical choice criteria. The sample frame used for this investigation spanned three industries, two products, and included both technical and nontechnical purchasing influencers. The results of our research do not support the widely subscribed-to notion that product standards are the inverse of product differentiation.