Buying group choice: The effect of individual group member's prior decision frame

This article reports the results from two experiments that tested decision-framing effects on choices made by simulated organizational buying groups. The first experiment showed that the choice of suppliers by buying groups varied depending on the nature: of the decision frame. Moreover, group influence seemed to intensify the effect of the loss decision frame. The second experiment tested whether mixed-frame groups used a lexicographic strategy to make multidimensional supplier choice decisions. Buying groups faced with a choice between two suppliers that differed with respect to price and quality chose the supplier that was best on the most important attribute-quality. Also, the decision frame associated with the important attribute affected the buying groups' choices. (C) 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.