Seminario Agentic versus Conversational AI in Procurement

Agentic versus Conversational AI in Procurement

Firms increasingly deploy AI tools in procurement, yet we still know relatively little about how different levels of AI autonomy shape the behavior of purchasing employees. In this ongoing field experiment with the procurement organization of a large industrial firm, we examine how an LLM-enabled cost-saving tool affects the price reduction goals that buyers enter into an internal performance management system. Our main analyses follow a difference-in-differences design with time and department fixed effects. The talk will present the experimental design, key implementation choices, and first insights from the roll-out, and will discuss implications for the design of AI tools in procurement and for goal-setting theory in operations and supply chain management.

Christoph Bode

Christoph Bode is a full professor at the University of Mannheim Business School, where he holds the Endowed Chair of Procurement. He received his Ph.D. from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany) and completed his habilitation at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). He holds degrees in industrial engineering from both the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) and the Grenoble Institute of Technology (INPG, France). Before joining Mannheim, he held academic positions at the Department of Management at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) and at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). His teaching and research focus on procurement, supply chain, logistics, and operations management, with a particular emphasis on risk and disruptions, interfirm relationships, innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability, and procurement strategies and performance. He currently also serves as speaker of the academic advisory board of the German Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME).