Purpose -Most existing classifications of business services have taken the perspective of the supplier as opposed to that of the buyer. To address this imbalance, the purpose of this paper is to propose a classification of business services based on how the buying company applies the service with respect to its own business processes. Design/methodology/approach -The paper considers some specific aspects of the process of buying and exchanging business services, focusing on the everyday production and consumption of services as opposed to the initial purchasing and negotiation phases. Findings -Earlier literature has developed similar, albeit less elaborate classifications, but does not provide detailed insight into how such classifications are related to differentiated buyer-supplier interaction. This classification distinguishes between four business service applications; as a component, semi-manufacture, instrument or consumable. For each of these four types of services, interaction has to achieve different objectives and consequently they differ with regards to required organizational resources in terms of required capabilities and buyer-supplier interfaces. Research limitations/implications -Primarily conceptual and exploratory in nature, this paper is intended as a review of existing literature and possible starting point for further empirical validation and theoretical refinement. The paper contends that the differences in application have a significant impact on interaction patterns, but this is not to say that other variables have no impact on buyer-supplier interaction patterns. Subsequent research should seek to control for those other possible sources of variation. Practical implications -The overall implication of this classification is that for different services, the buying company should assess how they are applied. Subsequently, it is relevant for firms to consider what functional aspects are crucial and who are likely to become, or who should be involved and to what extent, in the purchasing decision process and in the interactions that take place after the decision has been made.

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Although the concepts of relational and contractual governance in inter-organizational relationships have attracted academic and practitioner interest over the last decades, to date there have been limited comprehensive and systematic efforts to review, analyse and synthesise extant literature. We review and analyse 1,415 publications identified from a wide range of management disciplines and journals from 1990 to 2018. We deploy bibliographic and content analyses to offer a comprehensive literature analyses and synthesis and subsequently develop and position a multidimensional framework of exchange governance. The proposed framework covers existing conceptualisations of exchange governance and its diverse mechanisms, environmental dimensions influencing the use of exchange governance mechanisms and performance implications. We uncover areas that are currently under-studied and draw out fruitful future research avenues.

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Purpose -This paper aims to uncover the specific difficulties associated with buying services and proposes a structured purchasing process which can help organisational buyers to overcome the problems associated with services purchasing. Design/methodology/approach -The authors investigate the supposed differences between goods and services procurement by means of literature research and a questionnaire distributed among Dutch purchasing managers. Additionally, they draw on experiences from additional case study research and business practice to better understand the results of the survey and to further explore the actual process of buying services. Findings -The results of the literature review and the survey show that developing a proper specification is an important prerequisite for purchasing services successfully. Based on these findings, an expansion to the traditional purchasing process is proposed which incorporates the steps of preselecting suppliers and detailing the initial specification.Research limitations/implications -The survey is limited to The Netherlands. Furthermore, the questions in the survey consider the respondent's perception and not the "truth". Practical implications -For organisational buyers, the importance of a proper specification implies that they should involve service providers early on in the service purchasing process. The service providers consequently can exercise the appropriate resources to develop a high quality solution, but need to be able to demonstrate this added value in these early phases of the services purchasing process. Originality/value -The paper adds to the discussion on buying services and tries to find out why this is perceived as complicated. It highlights three problem areas and proposes a solution to tackle these.