Procurement doesn’t just have a measurement problem. It has a motivation problem.
Behind every misaligned target, every “savings” claim, and every missed opportunity is the same invisible culprit: incentives that quietly tell people to do the wrong things well.
In this episode of Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement, Jason Brown, accounting professor at Indiana University and longtime corporate incentives expert, joins co-hosts Philip Ideson and Rich Ham to expose how organizational reward systems shape behavior far more powerfully than strategy or mission statements ever could. He explains why even the most principled teams end up chasing metrics that distort procurement’s purpose, and why rethinking incentive design may be the key to unlocking true business alignment.
Drawing from decades of academic research and corporate consulting, Jason unpacks the subtle ways procurement incentives drift off course: how bonus structures reward volume over value, how finance and procurement end up speaking different dialects of “performance,” and how organizations confuse compliance with contribution. He also brings attention to the rare examples of companies that have broken these patterns by tying procurement’s rewards directly to shared outcomes that improve EBITDA, resilience, and stakeholder trust.
This conversation challenges a fundamental assumption: can procurement ever be purposeful if its people are rewarded for something other than real impact?
As Jason argues, until incentives reflect what actually matters to the business and society, procurement will remain stuck in a cycle of performative alignment where everyone looks busy but the enterprise stands still.
According to Jason, the truth may be uncomfortable, but it’s exactly what procurement needs to hear. Incentive design isn’t a soft topic or a side project. It’s the operating system of purposeful procurement, and it’s long overdue for an upgrade.
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