Cross-cultural determinants of global account management: Findings from B2B services

Abstract

The present study investigates the role of cross-culture differences on the under-researched area of global account management (GAM). Based on a review of key account management, GAM, and related research areas, we identify cultural factors influencing GAM implementation at the organizational and individual levels. Then, we report on empirical data from 432 global account managers in business-to-business (B2B) services firms in different cultural contexts. The findings show that sales organizations experience cross-cultural challenges in their GAM programmes. The variances in the respective cultural dimensions between sales organizations and strategic (global) accounts require a ‘learning organization’ to ensure that cross-cultural challenges within the GAM process are timely identified and adequately managed. In addition, the institutionalization of GAM programmes can reduce the cross-culture variance that exists between sales organizations and global accounts due to intangibility, especially in B2B services; GAM institutionalization also ensures effective relationships with global accounts. The study contributes to B2B research by providing a configurational framework of cross-cultural GAM that considers psychic and cultural distance as crucial elements in a learning organization to serve their strategic customers across different cultural contexts.