Returns on key accounts:do the results justify the expenditures?

Purpose – The use of key accounts has become a mature trend and most industrial firms use this concept in some form. Selling firms establish key account teams to attend to important customers and consolidate their selling activities. Yet, despite such increased efforts on behalf of key accounts, sufficient research has not quantified the returns on key account strategy nor has it firmly established performance differences between key and non-key accounts within a firm. In response to this shortcoming, this study aims to examine returns on key accounts. Design Methodology/approach – Data were collected from a global consulting firm. The data collection started two years after the implementation of the key account program. Data were collected on recently acquired customers (within the previous year) at two time periods: year 1 and year 3 (based on company access of data). Findings – Initially, key accounts perform as well or better than other types of accounts. However, in the long term, key accounts are less satisfied, less profitable and less beneficial for a firm’s growth than other types of accounts. Because the returns to key account expenditures, thus, appear mixed, firms should be cautious in expanding their key account strategies. Research limitations implications – The study contributes to research in three areas. First, most research on the effectiveness of key accounts refers to the between-firm level, whereas this study examines the effect within a single firm. Second, this study examines the temporal aspects of key accounts, namely, what happens to key accounts over time, in comparison with other accounts in a fairly large sample. Third, it considers the survival rates of key accounts versus other types of accounts. Practical implications – The authors suggest that firms also need to track their key accounts better because the results show that key accounts are less satisfied, less profitable and less beneficial for a firm’s growth than other types of accounts. Originality/value – Extant research has not examined these issues

Looking Forward, Looking Back:British Journal of Management 2000–2015

This paper reflects on 16 years of the British Journal of Management (BJM) and discusses what the future holds. The paper analyses publication statistics and submission figures, as well as Special Interest Group (SIG) affiliation of submissions over the more recent period of 2007–2015. It is found that human resource management has a clear dominance among the SIGs. Other fields that are well represented include strategy, work psychology, corporate governance and performance management. The paper also highlights that submissions to BJM are predominantly made by UK-based authors, possibly reflecting the concentration of UK-based academics among the pool of associate editors and the editorial board members

Erfolgsfaktoren des Multi-Channel-Managements

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Knowledge Management in Knowledge Intensive Service Networks: A Strategic Management Perspective

Knowledge is the key to gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. Driven by a change in consumer needs towards “comprehensive service solutions”, more and more services are offered through networks. By so doing, individual firms can concentrate on their distinctive competencies and by combining these with those of partner firms such a network is able to offer complex, knowledge-intensive services at high quality and at reasonable prices. It is clear that the success of such knowledge intensive service networks depends strongly on the effective and efficient combination and use of the distinctive competencies of the network partners. That ability to combine and use distinctive competencies represents the core competency of the network as a whole. Understanding knowledge as a key resource for those distinctive competencies the combination problem can be seen as a knowledge management problem. The main contribution of this paper is to analyze knowledge management in service networks. We use a strategic management approach instead of a more technology-oriented approach since we believe that managerial problems still remain after technological problems have been solved. Therefore the question arises how to guarantee an effective and efficient combination and utilization of the distributed knowledge in knowledge-intensive service networks. The objective of this paper is to analyze the problems concerning the management of knowledge in service networks. It outlines possible solutions for these knowledge management problems in order to provide sustaining competitive advantage for the network as a whole.knowledge management, networks, knowledge-intensive services

Research with in-built replications:comment and further suggestions for replication research

This brief commentary on the paper Designing Research with In-built Differentiated Replication expands on concerns about a lack of replication research by focusing on three key questions of continuous importance: Why should researchers conduct more replication research? Why do so few researchers conduct replication studies? What can researchers do to add more studies? This paper identifies barriers preventing replication related to the scientific system, the replication researcher, and the initial research. Suggestions include publishing all papers electronically along with reviews; authors taking steps to encourage replications of their work; and editors inviting replications of important papers. The scientific community should establish a replication index as a measure of output quality

Marketing innovative service solutions with inter-organizational service networks: opportunities and threats

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Value Co-Creation: Exploring the Effects of Collaborating with a Proactive Generation of Customers

Value Co-Creation plays a central role within the Service-Dominant Logic of marketing. However, value co-creation is largely conceptual and lacks empirical evidence around both the appropriate contexts and conditions for collaborative co-creation and effects on firms and customers. Using a mixed methods research design this thesis explores value co-creation through a sequential-exploratory, multi-phase approach. The first study is exploratory and qualitative with results influencing two further empirical studies, one quantitative and the other mixed method. This first study used expert ratings and in-depth interviews to explore value co-creation within a three-stage purchasing cycle. The results indicated differing approaches and a conceptual model is presented highlighting conditions under which firms might take advantage of opportunities for value co-creation. The second study used experiments to test the effect of co-creating on consumers; in particular, the role of trust and equity in co-created exchanges. The results showed how in co-created exchanges, trust and relationship investment are key in improving customer intentions, and how co-creating can reduce the negative impact of perceived inequity. The third study used a mixed methods approach to consider the indirect effect of co-creating on other customers. A case study approach with a public transport provider revealed how co-creation at railway stations might affect passenger behaviour. A hierarchical linear modelling study shows how co-creation at station level has an indirect effect on affective and conative loyalty. The thesis contributes to our understanding of value co-creation by reinforcing the contexts and conditions where collaborative forms of co-creation might be best employed. The thesis also shows how co-creating affects the consumers involved and the implications of this for firms. Finally, the thesis contributes by revealing how co-creating with a relatively small group can have a positive effect on a wider group of customers

Zahlungsbereitschaft im online Handel: Eine empirische Untersuchung mittels der Conjoint Analyse / Ahlert,D. / Evanschitzky, H.

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