Understanding e‐auction use by procurement professionals: motivation, attitudes and perceptions

Purpose – E‐auctions have had a big impact on procurement over the past decade. Despite the benefits, there has been well documented resistance to this procurement medium. There is a need to understand factors which influence motivation to use and attitude towards e‐auctions, in order to facilitate practitioners' ability to develop and adapt e‐auctions into an effective procurement tool. This paper seeks to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – A model of the inter‐relationships between e‐auction drivers is derived from an analysis of the literature. Data from a sample of senior procurement professionals across several industry sectors were collected by online questionnaire and a structural equation model was fitted using PLS. Findings – The study reveals that e‐auction use for procurement is motivated by building relationships with suppliers and not solely as a means of optimising prices of goods and services. Where attitude towards e‐auction use is negative, this is mainly driven by a strategic approach to procurement. Originality/value – Nowhere in the extant literature has there been a study on the impact of how the organisational role of procurement by the organisation impacts e‐auctions use and attitudes. Furthermore, by distinguishing between motivations for using e‐auctions and attitudes towards them, procurement professionals are found to have a negative attitude to e‐auctions, but at the same time their motivations for using them are significantly linked to building relationships with their suppliers. This suggests that the potential of e‐auctions as a powerful procurement tool is being realised, but as yet has not been fully developed and implemented. The implications are that procurement managers should focus on developing the use of e‐auctions in a more strategic way to maximise both their effectiveness and the investment in them for the longer term.