Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Industrial Marketing Management

The impact of strategic account managers' behaviors on relational outcomes: An

empirical study
Paolo Guenzi a,⁎, Laurent Georges b, Catherine Pardo c
a
Department of Management – Institute of Marketing, Bocconi University and SDA Bocconi School of Management, Via Bocconi, 8, 20136 Milano, Italy
b
IUT-Tarbes, University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, LCG Research Center, EA 2043, Toulouse, France
c
OCE – EM-Lyon, 23, Avenue Guy de Collongue BP 174, Lyon Ecully Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper explores the impact of some behaviors of strategic account managers on the relational outcomes of
Received 10 August 2006 the relationships they are in charge of. Based on a review of literature on personal selling and strategic account
Received in revised form 17 July 2007 management, we contribute to a greater understanding of the role of specific strategic account managers'
Accepted 17 September 2007
behaviors in fostering synergistic solutions, role performance and customer trust. Results of the empirical
Available online 2 April 2008
study clearly show that the use of customer orientation has a strong influence on customer trust by increasing
strategic account managers' role performance and stimulating synergistic solutions. Conversely, a selling
Keywords:
orientation negatively affects synergistic solutions, thus decreasing customer trust. Finally, team selling has a
Relational behaviors
positive impact on the attainment of synergistic solutions, thereby fostering customer trust. Based on these
Strategic account managers
Customer trust findings, managerial and research implications are discussed.
Synergistic solutions © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Team selling
PLS

1. Introduction
Strategic account management has recently been highlighted as a
major area of academic research (Leigh & Marshall, 2001; Workman,
Homburg & Jensen, 2003). Managers and academics alike increasingly
recognize that suppliers need to develop long-lasting relationships
with selected, high stake customers (Beverland, 2001; Homburg,
Workman & Jensen, 2002; Workman et al., 2003).
Despite this widespread interest in strategic account management
in general, individual-level behaviors that should be adopted by those
who are in charge of managing relationships with strategic accounts
remain an under-developed topic in academic research.
As pointed out by Sengupta, Krapfel and Pusateri (2000), many
different terms have been used to label these selected clients: large
accounts (Miller, Heiman & Tuleja, 1991), major accounts (Colletti &
Tubridy, 1987), national accounts (Shapiro & Moriarty, 1984), key
accounts (Pardo, 1997; Homburg et al., 2002; Workman et al., 2003)
and strategic accounts (Napolitano, 1997). In our study we use the
terms “strategic accounts” and “key accounts” interchangeably, to
encompass all terms suggested to describe those customers who, for
different reasons (e.g. their current and future quantity of purchases,
their lead user function, their reputation, etc.), are considered worthy
of special attention and treatment on the part of the selling company
(Walter, Ritter & Gemünden, 2001).
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 02 58366820; fax: +39 02 58366893.
E-mail addresses: paolo.guenzi@sdabocconi.it (P. Guenzi),
Laurent.georges@iut-tarbes.fr (L. Georges), pardo@em-lyon.com (C. Pardo).
Similarly, we use the term “strategic account manager” or “key account
manager” interchangeably, to refer to the person who is in charge of
managing the relationships with these strategic accounts. In previous
research, this position has been given different labels, such as key account
salesperson (Sengupta et al., 2000), key account representative (Schultz &
Evans 2002), or simply salesperson (Boles, Barksdale & Johnson, 1996).
Whatever the label used, there is a widespread recognition of the fact that
these individuals contribute greatly to the implementation of a relational
approach to strategic customers (Iacobucci & Ostrom, 1996; Mavondo &
Rodrigo, 2001; Weitz & Bradford, 1999).
Nevertheless, the majority of contributions to date have investigated
company-level relational behaviors (e.g. Leuthesser, 1997) and drivers of
key account relationships (e.g. Sengupta, Krapfel & Pusateri, 1997). Only a
few exceptions have made empirical analysis of the individual-level
behaviors that should be adopted by those who are in charge of managing
relationships with strategic accounts. Platzer (1984), and Wotruba and
Castleberry (1993), identified the most widespread and relevant activities
performed by strategic account managers. Boles, Barksdale and Johnson
(1996) listed eight classes of behavior, requested by decision-makers in
large accounts. Sengupta et al. (2000) studied the determinants of key
account salesperson effectiveness. More recently, Schultz and Evans
(2002) developed and tested a model of collaborative communication by
key account representatives.
To sum up, the existing literature provides a first set of rich and
interesting contributions but it has only scratched the surface of what
affects strategic account managers' outcomes. Much more needs to be
investigated if we want to fully understand how to manage a strategic
accounts sales force. In other words, just like a lot of attention has been

0019-8501/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2007.09.011
 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
focused on the individual-level determinants of salesperson performance,
we argue that a similar effort should be placed on the antecedents of
strategic account managers' outcomes.
In light of these considerations, the purpose of this paper is to present
and test a model of strategic account managers' contribution to fostering
customer trust. This model integrates previous research on strategic
account management and builds on the framework developed by Schultz
and Evans (2002) by incorporating individual-level behaviors and relating
them to outcome constructs which lead to customer trust. We decided to
start from this framework because it has a lot of merit for different reasons.
First, as stated beforehand, it is one of the very few articles investigating
individual-level behaviors of strategic account managers. Second, it is
based on a well accepted relationship between an individual's behaviors
and his/her performance (Plank & Reid, 1994; Biong & Selnes, 1996). Third,
it incorporates a broad set of relational outcomes – synergistic solutions,
role performance and trust in strategic account representative – that
capture different facets of buyer–seller relational exchanges and can
reasonably result in sales and favor the development of long term
relationships.
Despite its relevant contribution, Schultz and Evans' study has
several limitations.
First, it only investigates a limited set of drivers of relational outcomes
in key account management, i.e. communication aspects (informality, bi-
directionality, frequency and strategic content). Obviously, many other
potentially relevant drivers deserve investigation. Our research examines
a completely different set of key account manager behaviors – customer
orientation, selling orientation and team selling – thus expanding existing
knowledge and integrating recent research in key account management
and salesperson's performance. Importantly, as we will explain later on,
these behaviors cover both the “individual” and the “collective” dimen-
sions of a key account manager's job.
Second, the original model assumes that the three relational
outcomes are at the same level. In contrast, based on the literature on
relationship marketing and relationship selling, we posit that
synergistic solutions and role performance act as mediating variables
between individual behaviors and customer trust, therefore testing a
causal order between relational outcomes.
A third limitation of Schultz and Evans' study is that a key construct
(trust) is measured by two items only that do not include the buyer's
evaluation of the vendor's benevolence. Hence, we used a four item
measure incorporating this relevant component, too.
Fig. 1. A conceptual framework of strategic account managers' contribution to customer trust.
301
A fourth limitation of the study is that the model was tested in one
company only. Our study focuses on key account relationships in
many different business-to-business industries.
The goal of our study is to address these limitations to increase
existing knowledge on key account management.
This paper is divided into four sections. The first part presents the
model, clarifies the different constructs examined, and develops a set
of hypotheses linking strategic account managers' behaviors to
relational outcomes. Next, we explain the method used to test the
model. The third section presents the results of the analysis. Finally,
we discuss theoretical and managerial implications, outline limita-
tions of the study and highlight future research opportunities.
2. Conceptual model, constructs and hypotheses
Fig. 1 shows the conceptual framework that is proposed and tested in
the study. It represents an attempt to identify structural characteristics of
customer trust towards the strategic account manager in a business to
business selling context and focuses on the point of view of the vendors.
Collecting data from this perspective was thought to be crucial as strategic
account managers are often in charge of relationships and set directions
for their own behaviors. As underlined by Schultz and Evans (2002),
strategic account managers' interpretations of their actual behaviors and
outcomes will determine possible changes in their sales strategies as
surveys of customers are not always available.
Specifically, the model posits strategic account manager behaviors
(customer orientation, selling orientation and team selling) as
antecedents to role performance and synergistic solutions. Trust in
the strategic account manager represents the final outcome of role
performance and synergistic solutions.
As stated beforehand, the model builds on the framework
developed by Schultz and Evans (2002). However, it incorporates 1)
a different set of relational behaviors as well as 2) a sequential path in
the outcome variables.
1) Whereas, Schultz and Evans (2002) focused on collaborative
communication, our model offers a different set of behaviors,
drawn from literature on relationship selling and key account
management. We focus our attention on three behaviors: customer
orientation, selling orientation and team selling. The first two
represent both dimensions of the Selling Orientation-Customer
302 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
Orientation construct, initially developed by Saxe and Weitz (1982).
A number of empirical studies investigated sales-oriented and
customer-oriented behaviors, but we found no research that
explicitly examine how both dimensions of the SOCO scale affect
strategic account manager's performance. In fact, the existing
literature on strategic account management pays little attention to
the impact of these two constructs on the strategic account
manager's outcomes. In addition to this, given the emphasis placed
in the literature (e.g. Wotruba & Castleberry, 1993; Sengupta et al.,
2000) on the coordination role and integration tasks performed by
the strategic account manager, it is also important to understand
how this dimension might influence his/her outcomes. Therefore,
whereas, Schultz and Evans (2002) study focused on the individual-
level determinants of strategic account manager performance, we
also took into consideration – through the inclusion of the team
selling construct – the collective or organizational dimension of his/
her work. If customer orientation and selling orientation reflect the
strategic account manager's individual behaviors towards the
customer, team selling, by contrast, expresses the collective
dimension of the strategic account manager's position as it
represents his/her efforts to marshal and coordinate resources
from different people and departments in his/her organization.
2) As stated by Schultz and Evans (2002, pp. 29–30), one of the limitations
of their work was that their model did not test causal relationships
between outcome constructs. Therefore, in order to enrich their
framework, we posit role performance and synergistic solutions as
antecedents of strategic account manager trust. From a theoretical
standpoint, this choice is based on literature on relationship marketing
and relationship selling. In fact, trust is probably the most important
outcome construct in relational literature, especially because it is the
building block for relationship commitment and has a long term
nature (e.g. Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Doney & Cannon, 1997; Weitz &
Bradford, 1999). For example, Berry (1996, p. 42) states that “trust [is]
perhaps the single most powerful relationship marketing tool available
to a company” and, as highlighted by Gundlach and Murphy (1993, p.
41), “the variable most universally accepted as a basis of any human
interaction or exchange is trust”. Similarly, trust is a key construct in the
literature investigating relationship selling (e.g. Jolson, 1997; Wilson,
2000). In our context of analysis, customer trust develops thanks to the
capacity of the strategic account manager to cooperate with the buyer
(s) to accomplish joint solutions (i.e. synergistic solutions) and to fulfill
the different facets of his/her role (i.e. role performance). Moreover,
based on relational literature, relationship selling performance should
include both present and future indicators of the customer's relation-
ship with the salesperson. In this perspective, role performance and
synergistic solutions represent measures of present results reached
either individually or jointly. In other words, they assess the current
state of the strategic account manager's performance. Conversely,
customer trust provides a crucial insight into the future stability and
potential growth of the relationship. In fact, as highlighted by Swan,
Bowers and Richardson (1999), the concept of trust includes
expectations about the future and expresses the customer's will-
ingness to accept the risk of undesirable outcomes if the salesperson
lacks the ability or motivation to keep his/her promises.
The following paragraphs examine the conceptualization of each
construct in our model and develop hypotheses.
2.1. Strategic account managers' relational behaviors
The exogenous variables in the model can be defined as selling
behaviors or, as suggested by Crosby, Evans and Cowles (1990), as
behavioral tendencies exhibited by representatives of vendors affecting
their behavioral performance. One aspect of the strategic account
manager position is to act individually to manage the relationship with
the accounts. According to the literature, in dealing with customers, he
or she may adopt two distinct sets of behaviors referred as customer
and selling orientations (Saxe & Weitz, 1982). However, it has also been
noted by many authors (Wotruba & Castleberry,1993; Weitz & Bradford,
1999) that the strategic account manager position is characterized by a
second aspect, reflecting the role of a coordinator of a sales team. Teams
are used because in a strategic account setting, the selling process
usually goes beyond the capabilities of any one individual (Workman
et al., 2003). As a result, strategic account managers are also in charge of
managing the activities of teams rather than simply managing their
own personal activities (Weitz & Bradford,1999). We therefore included
in our study a third class of behaviors called team selling.
2.1.1. Customer orientation–selling orientation
Customer oriented selling can be interpreted as the implementation of
the marketing concept at the level of the individual salesperson. As such,
this selling approach is consistent with the building of long-lasting posi-
tive relationships between the buyer and the seller. Therefore, it is widely
recognized as an important class of relational selling behaviors (Flaherty,
Dahlstrom & Skinner, 1999; Keillor, Parker & Pettijohn, 2000; Martin &
Bush, 2003; Schultz & Good, 2000), but quite surprisingly it has never been
investigated in a typical relational context like key account management. It
is noteworthy that the SOCO scale incorporates two sub-scales, i.e. selling
orientation and customer orientation: although strongly (and negatively)
interrelated, these two factors have rarely been investigated separately. In
this study, we will develop and test opposing hypotheses for the two sub-
scales. Importantly, although SOCO has been conceptualized in many ways
(e.g. as an attitude, a measure of performance, etc.), it is best viewed as a
set of behaviors (Schwepker, 2003).
2.1.2. Team selling
Team selling implies that multiple contacts are established between the
supplier and the buyer (Cron & DeCarlo, 2006). It is important to underline
that such contacts usually take place and need to be coordinated effectively
and efficiently even when formal sales teams do not exist in the selling
firm. In this study, this construct includes the strategic account manager's
ability to identify experts within his/her organization and deploy them to
help the customer. Although similar to the idea of entrepreneurial ability
offered by Sengupta et al. (2000), our conceptualization goes further and
incorporates the efforts made by the strategic account manager to
coordinate the resources mobilized. Team selling is usually adopted in
complex buyer–seller situations, where the customer requires special
treatment and the potential sale is large, i.e. typical conditions of
relationships with strategic and key accounts (Jackson, Widmier, Giacobbe,
& Keith,1999). As the members of the sales team usually belong to different
departments, the necessity of a strong coordination needs to be
emphasized (Honeycutt, 1996). Therefore, strategic account managers are
typically described as captains or leaders of teams who are in charge of
selecting technicians and other specialists who then meet with specialists
on the buying side (Georges & Eggert, 2003).
2.2. Strategic account managers' relational outcomes
Consistently with the goal to extend the previous work by Schultz
and Evans (2002), our study explores three relational outcomes (role
performance, synergistic solutions and trust in the strategic account
manager) of long term buyer–seller interactions. Role performance
and synergistic solutions can be classified as pertaining to the
individual's effectiveness (i.e. role performance), on the one hand,
and the combined effort of the two parties (i.e. synergistic solutions),
on the other. As pointed out beforehand, trust in the strategic account
manager (i.e. a critical aspect of relationship success) is interpreted as
the final relational outcome variable.
2.2.1. Role performance
This construct describes the strategic account manager's individual
effectiveness in developing plans and providing expertise to the customer
 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
(Frazier & Rody, 1991). It represents the extent to which he/she perceives
that the relationship has been effective in achieving performance
objectives. In this way, role performance synthesizes his/her individual
effectiveness in solving the customer's problems, developing strategic
plans, and enhancing outcomes (Schultz & Evans, 2002, p. 25).
2.2.2. Synergistic solutions
In contrast with role performance, which covers the individual
performance of the strategic account manager, this construct
represents the combined effort of the two parties to be innovative
and accomplish joint solutions that could not be obtained by either
individual in the absence of the partner (Jap & Weitz, 1994; Schultz &
Evans, 2002). Implementing a relational strategy requires interactive,
two-way exchange processes between the seller and the buyer, aimed
especially at developing interdependence and co-production of value
(Möller & Wilson, 1995). Similarly, Wilson (1995) points out that
maintaining the buyer–seller relationship over time relies on mutual
goals and joint action, while Ganesan (1994) underlines that at the
heart of relational exchanges there are joint synergies resulting from
exploiting idiosyncratic assets and risk sharing.
2.2.3. Trust in the strategic account manager
In the present research, we define trust as the customer's belief that
the strategic account manager can be expected to show reliability and
integrity (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) and forbearance from opportunism
(Smith & Barclay, 1997) in future interactions. Our conceptualization is
limited to the customer's trust in a person and does not take into
consideration trust in the selling organization. Adopting a long-term
perspective emphasizes the vital importance of trust, a construct
which synthesizes and represents both the output of past relations and
the input for future ones (Anderson & Narus, 1990; Morgan & Hunt,
1994). In short, trust is a focal construct in the analysis of relational
strategies (Ganesan, 1994; Doney & Cannon, 1997; Blois, 1999).
2.3. Hypotheses
It is generally recognized that customer orientation increases
performance (Saxe & Weitz, 1982; Swenson & Herche, 1994; Keillor
et al., 2000; Boles, Babin, Brashear, & Brooks, 2001; Brown, Mowen,
Donavan, & Licata, 2002) and effectiveness (Baldauf & Cravens, 1999).
However, to our knowledge, empirical research on this topic to date
has not investigated the impact of customer orientation on the specific
outcomes we take into account in this research. We argue that there
is a large body of evidence which links customer orientation to
relational-like outcomes. Humphreys and Williams (1996) and Goff,
Boles, Bellenger & Stojack (1997) have demonstrated that customer
orientation generates higher levels of customer satisfaction with the
salesperson, thus increasing his/her role performance. Jones, Busch
and Dacin (2003) showed that customer orientation reduces a
customer's propensity to switch to other suppliers. Boles, Barksdale
and Johnson (1996), Beverland (2001) and Liu and Leach (2001) found
that a salesperson's relational behaviors which are oriented toward
the customer improve the customer's perception of the quality of the
buyer–seller relationship. To sum up, we can conclude that customer
orientation increases the selling company's relational outcomes by
improving the quality of the customer's interpersonal relationship
with the sales force (Langerak, 2001). As customer orientation reflects
non-opportunistic behavior which stresses customer-focused solu-
tions and mutual benefits (Schwepker, 2003), we argue that it should
positively affect both the strategic account manager's role perfor-
mance and provision of synergistic solutions, thereby ultimately
increasing customer trust. Building on the above-cited theoretical and
empirical foundations, we hypothesize that:
H1. The strategic account manager's customer orientation is posi-
tively related to his/her role performance.
303
H2. The strategic account manager's customer orientation is posi-
tively related to his/her provision of synergistic solutions.
Interestingly, it has been pointed out that the SOCO scale consists of
two distinct, though related, subscales (Thomas, Soutar and Ryan, 2001).
Nevertheless, very few studies have examined simultaneously the impact
of customer orientation on the one hand, and the impact of selling
orientation on the other, on selected outcome variables. Among these
studies, Goff et al. (1997) posits and partially supports the existence of
opposing consequences of customer orientation and selling orientation on
customer satisfaction. Tam and Wong (2001) demonstrates that customer
orientation has a positive effect on both customer satisfaction and
customer trust, while selling orientation has a negative impact on both
outputs. Thus, we hypothesize that a selling orientation, compared to a
customer orientation, will have an opposite (i.e. negative) effect on the two
relational outcomes taken into account in this study:
H3. The strategic account manager's selling orientation is negatively
related to his/her role performance.
H4. The strategic account manager's selling orientation is negatively
related to his/her provision of synergistic solutions.
Cross-functional selling teams are necessary in strategic account
management since an individual salesperson does not possess the
knowledge or intrafirm influence to propose and implement a
program that has the potential for building a competitive advantage
for the seller–buyer dyad (Weitz & Bradford, 1999). This statement
clearly underlines the fact that synergistic solutions (i.e. a win–win
outcome for both members of the dyad) often result from team selling.
Based on this background we hypothesize:
H5. The strategic account manager's adoption of team selling is
positively related to synergistic solutions.
The management of a business relationship with a customer
encompasses a multiplicity of different tasks which require a wide
range of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Therefore, the ability of the
individual strategic account manager to be the selling team coordi-
nator and to work closely with colleagues from other departments is
widely recognized as a fundamental driver of his/her individual
performance (e.g. Millman, 1996; Weilbaker & Weeks, 1997; Wilson &
Millman, 2003). Hence we hypothesize that:
H6. The strategic account manager's adoption of team selling is
positively related to his/her role performance.
Although there is no general consensus on the causal ordering of
relational constructs, we argue that customer trust in the salesperson
is one of the ultimate goals of the relationship-building process, as it
leads to commitment (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Therefore, in our
conceptualization, synergistic solutions and role performance are
most appropriately posited as predictors of trust. They stem from past
behaviors and refer to the customer's evaluation of his/her relation-
ship with the strategic account manager to date. By contrast, trust
reflects the customer's expectations about future behaviors. Finally,
customers will be more inclined to trust account managers who are
effective in terms of performance and develop synergistic solutions.
Based on this rationale, we hypothesize that:
H7. The strategic account manager's provision of synergistic solutions
is positively related to customer trust.
H8. The strategic account manager's role performance is positively
related to customer trust.
3. Method of the study
3.1. Data collection, questionnaire development and sample
Although it could be argued that the best informants for the model
tested in the study would be buyer–seller dyads, in light of the obvious
304 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
selection problems to obtain participation from dyads of respondents, the
survey respondents were all strategic account managers. A similar
approach was also adopted in recent studies on strategic account
management (see Sengupta et al., 2000; Schultz & Evans, 2002). In fact,
strategic account managers base their decisions and actions upon their
personal evaluations but also on their perceptions of the evaluations of
third parties (sales manager or customer). In keeping with Expectancy
Theory, strategic account managers will spend more effort on those
behaviors which, in their belief, lead to greater performance which, in
turn, should drive to greater rewards. In strategic account management,
performance is usually best interpreted in terms of relationship building.
Hence, both managers and academics need to understand what are the
strategic account managers’ beliefs and perceptions concerning the
linkages between behaviors and relational outcomes. This is why using
strategic account managers as respondents should be appreciated from
both a theoretical and a managerial perspective.
Strategic account managers were asked how often they perform
customer-oriented, selling-oriented and team selling behaviors. In
addition, for the different outcomes included in our model (i.e. role
performance, synergistic solutions and trust), we asked their percep-
tions about the evaluations of the strategic account.
Using self-reporting measures has some limitations. However
Spector (2006, p.225), based on the findings of many empirical
studies, claims that “evidence fails to support social desirability as a
general source of correlation inflating CMV when self-reports are
used”. In addition to this, Schultz and Evans (2002) argued that it is
appropriate to use the key account managers' self-report performance
assessment as a “proxy” interpretation of the key accounts' view
because in such close, long-term relationships the understanding
parties have of each other transcends the typical information available
in contexts characterized by single transactions (see Ickes, 1993).
Additionally, Schultz and Evans suggested that using self-reporting
measures is appropriate especially when (like in our case) this self-
assessment does not refer to objective criteria (e.g. quota, sales
volume, etc.), but rather to qualitative dimensions (e.g. trust). Finally,
it is important to underline that Schultz and Evans (2002, p.26) also
surveyed 40 key accounts in their study and found that “the customer
survey yielded virtually identical relationship results to those of the
vendor data”. Based on these arguments, we also conclude, just like
Schultz and Evans, that the use of key account managers to measure
the quality of the customer relationship is appropriate.
In addition to these considerations, consistently with the recom-
mendations made by Podsakoff et al. (2003), we used a number of
procedural and statistical remedies against the potential problems
associated with common method bias and single respondent bias.
First, we protected respondent anonymity by assuring complete
confidentiality. Second, we reduced item ambiguity by using well
established scales and by pre-testing the questionnaire. Third, we
used different scale formats and scale anchors (“never–always”;
“strongly disagree–strongly agree”; “very little–to a great deal”; etc.).
Fourth, we used Harman's one-factor test: a principal component
factor analysis on all the variables measured using the survey
instrument revealed six factors with eigenvalues greater than 1,
which together accounted for 73.8% of the total variance; also, the
first, largest factor did not account for a majority of the variance (28%).
Therefore, it can be concluded that common method bias is not likely
to be a serious concern in our study (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986).
To test our hypotheses, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in Italy.
The questionnaire was originally developed in English, as all the constructs
used in the research were based on studies in English-speaking countries.
The English version of the questionnaire was translated into Italian by one
expert translator and then translated back into English by a second; both
translators reconciled differences. Strategic account managers were
selected as respondents. The goal of the sampling process was to include
sales organizations from various selling environments. Using a database of
former participants in executive education training programs in a major
Italian management school, 220 potential respondents were selected.
Although many differences arose in their job titles, they all stated they
were in charge of managing relationships with their company's strategic
accounts. They were informed by phone that they would be receiving the
questionnaire. Participants were also assured complete confidentiality.
Respondents provided data for a specific strategic account for which they
were responsible. If they handled several accounts, they were asked to
choose the one that best represented the above-cited definition of a
strategic account. Three weeks after the initial contact, non-respondents
were followed up by telephone. A total of 127 usable questionnaires were
obtained, thus achieving a response rate of 57.7%. In line with our
objectives, many different industries are represented, including industrial
goods (34%), consumer/durable goods (28.2%), services (29.1%), pharma-
ceuticals/medical (6.8%), and others (1.9%). Equally noteworthy is the fact
that the sample includes organizations which vary in size. The average
experience of the respondents participating in the study is 4 years in their
current position, just under 7 years with their current organization, and
10.5 years in a sales position. The average number of strategic accounts of
the selling firm is 37, and the average number of accounts managed per
strategic account manager is 7.7. Remuneration is mainly based on fixed
salary (79% of total). Commissions and bonuses are 7% and 12%
respectively. As for the characteristics of the working environment,
companies in the sample operate in highly competitive markets, where
the sales force is of paramount importance (whereas e-commerce is not
relevant), there is a wide variety of customers and sales trends are mainly
stable. Early and late respondents were compared to check for a possible
response bias (Armstrong & Overton, 1977). A t-test of difference in means
on all the constructs used in the research model showed no significant
difference in means between early and late respondents (see Appendix A).
3.2. Measures
Based on a review of the literature, we used existing scales for each
construct, with the exception of team selling. In fact, although
Workman, Homburg and Jensen (2003) have recently offered a new
three-item scale to measure “use of teams”, no generally accepted
measure of team selling exists in the sales literature. Therefore,
following our review of the literature on this topic, a new five-item
survey instrument was developed. To measure the customer orienta-
tion and selling orientation, the ten items of the SOCO scale, as
proposed by Thomas, Soutar and Ryan (2001), were used. As for role
performance and synergistic solutions, we used the two scales
developed by Schultz and Evans (2002). Finally, regarding trust we
pooled the items used by Sengupta et al. (2000), which only refer to
the customer's perceptions about the strategic account manager's
honesty/benevolence, together with those adopted by Schultz and
Evans (2002) which, in contrast, express the customer's perceptions
about the reliability and competence of the counterpart. By doing this,
our measure is consistent with the traditional definition of inter-
personal trust in buyer–seller relationship, i.e. a situation where “the
industrial buyer believes and feels that he can rely on what the
salesperson says or promises to do in a situation where the buyer is
dependent upon the salesperson's honesty and reliability (Swan &
Nolan, 1985, p.40). In fact reliability and benevolence are the two key
facets of this construct (Swan, Bowers & Richardson 1999). Our choice
to treat interpersonal trust as a unidimensional construct including
items that tap both the credibility and benevolence aspects is
consistent with the approach adopted by Doney and Cannon (1997,
p.43), who note that “Although credibility and benevolence could be
conceptually distinct […] they may be so intertwined that in practice
they are operationally inseparable”. Moreover, in keeping with the
suggestion made by Swan, Bowers and Richardson, (1999), our scale
incorporates items at different level of abstraction, i.e. items which
refer to specific behaviors of the strategic account manager (e.g. “could
be trusted to make emergency decisions, if he/she could not be
reached”), to attributes broader than a specific behavior and to general
 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311 305

Table 1 confidence intervals other than those calculated from a normal

Properties of measurement Model 1 distribution, and (2) the possibility to use a larger number of samples
Construct Indicators Factor Composite Average variance
(Chin, 1998b). Due to these reasons, we adopted the bootstrap
loadingsa reliabilityb extractedc technique. Bootstrapping was used to draw at random a bootstrap
set of 127 cases. The process was repeated 200 times to obtain stable
Customer orientation custo1 0.66 0.93 0.76
custo3 0.92 standard errors and low differences between entire sample estimates
custo4 0.95 and mean of subsamples (Léger, Politis & Romano, 1992).
custo5 0.93
Selling orientation sello1 0.68 0.86 0.56
4. Results
sello2 0.75
sello3 0.72
sello4 0.74 4.1. Data analysis
sello5 0.83
Team selling team1 0.86 0.90 0.75 Following standard procedures (Churchill, 1979), several steps
team2 0.89
were taken to ensure reliability and validity of the multi-item scales.
team3 0.86
team4 0.75 In the first step, reliability analysis was carried out by calculating
team5 0.86 Cronbach's alphas. For all the constructs, Cronbach's alphas exceeded
Trust trust1 0.91 0.93 0.83 the 0.7 threshold (Nunnally, 1978). In the second step, we conducted
trust2 0.91
principal component analysis on each construct to check for
trust3 0.92
trust4 0.90
unidimensionality. One item (custo2) measuring customer orientation
Synergistic solutions syne1 0.90 0.94 0.85 was dropped, due to low indicator loadings. The PLS analysis showed
syne2 0.93 satisfactory reliability, convergent validity as well as discriminant
syne3 0.91 validity among constructs (see Tables 1 and 2 for detailed results).
Role performance role1 0.76 0.86 0.71
The PLS results are interpreted in two stages: by assessment of its
role2 0.86
role3 0.84 measurement model, and by assessment of its structural model
a
(Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Moreover, a path model can be evaluated at
A loading is significant when above 0.55 (Falk and Miller 1992, p. 81).
b
Scale reliability is considered satisfactory when the composite reliability is above three levels: the quality of the measurement model, the quality of the
0.70 (Nunnally, 1978). structural model, and each structural regression equation (Tenenhaus,
c
Convergent validity is considered satisfactory when the AVE is above 0.50 (Fornell & Esposito Vinzi, Chatelin, & Lauro, 2005).
Larcker, 1981).

4.1.1. Measurement model

trust measures (e.g. “do the job with integrity”).The guidelines used Following Cohen (1988) the epistemic relationships were specified
were those outlined by Churchill (1979). First, all items were as reflective for all constructs, suggesting that the constructs are
submitted to five marketing scholars and three strategic account manifest in or give rise to their measures. The properties of the
managers to ensure content validity. Participants were asked to check measurement model are provided in Table 1, and the means, standard
the clarity of each item and its capacity to reflect the underlying deviations and correlations among the constructs are shown in
construct. Second, the questionnaire was pre-tested with 20 strategic Table 2. All factor loadings are higher than 0.65, suggesting
account managers participating in a Strategic Account Management satisfactory item reliability. As indicated in Table 1, all composite
Executive Program at a major Italian business school. After some reliability indicators are satisfactory, since they are all above the 0.7
minor adjustments, the resulting items were included in the final threshold recommended by Nunnally (1978).
survey (see Appendix B for scale items). Convergent validity was confirmed as the average variance in
manifest variables extracted by constructs (AVE) was at least 0.56,
3.3. Model estimation indicative that more variance was explained than unexplained in the
variables associated with a given construct (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
The structural equation model (Model 1), represented by the path One criterion for adequate discriminant validity is that the correlation
diagram in Fig. 1, was estimated using a partial least square (PLS) of a construct with its indicators (i.e., the square root of the AVE)
latent path model. PLS can accommodate small samples and it should exceed the correlation between the construct and any other
provides measurement assessment which is crucial to our study, as we construct (Fornell & Larcker 1981). The findings shown in Table 2
have a fairly limited sample size (Wold, 1982). In addition, it avoids suggest discriminant validity: in fact all diagonal elements are greater
some of the restrictive assumptions imposed by LISREL-like models than the off-diagonal elements in the corresponding rows and
(Fornell & Bookstein, 1982). In fact, as stated by O'Loughlin and columns.
Coenders (2004), ML-SEM assumes that observations are independent Overall, these measurement results are satisfactory and suggest
and follow a multivariate normal distribution. PLS-SEM uses non- that it is appropriate to proceed with the evaluation of the structural
parametric inference methods (such as bootstrapping or jackknifing) model.
and is free of these assumptions. Due to our limited sample size (127
cases), we decided to use PLS. Another advantage of the PLS approach
is that it provides measurement assessment which is critical to our Table 2
study as we develop new measures (Dawes and Lee, 1996). PLS has Construct means, standard deviations and intercorrelations for Model 1
also been chosen because it is ideal for the early stages of theory
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
development, as is the case in this research (Hulland, 1999). Finally,
according to Chin (1998b), using the resampling procedures (i.e. 1. Customer orientation 5.78 1.69 0.87
2. Role performance 5.27 0.97 0.40 0.84
bootstrap and jackknife) packaged in the SmartPLS software (version
3. Selling orientation 2.89 1.29 − 0.28 −0.22 0.75
2.0), one can calculate the standard deviation and generate an 4. Synergistic solutions 5.51 0.98 0.44 0.50 −0.30 0.92
approximate t-statistic. This overcomes the disadvantage of non- 5. Team selling 6.04 1.01 0.43 0.32 −0.21 0.39 0.86
parametric methods of having no formal significance tests for the 6. Customer trust 5.62 0.80 0.55 0.46 −0.30 0.54 0.32 0.91
estimated parameters. Compared to jackknifing, the bootstrap Note: Bold numbers on the diagonal show the square root of the AVE; numbers below
technique offers two advantages: (1) the possibility to calculate the diagonal represent construct correlations.
306 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311

Table 3 (see Table 5). The cv-communality index (H2) measures the quality of
Parameter estimation of the PLS Models by the Bootstrap method the measurement model, whereas the cv-redundancy index (i.e.
Construct Model 1a Model 2a Model 3a
Stone–Geisser's Q2, which Tenenhaus et al. (2005, p. 174) call F2)
measures the quality of the structural model.
Dependent variable: Role performance
As shown in Table 5, the measurement model (H2 = 0.54) shows a
Customer orientation 0.30b 3.20c⁎ – – 0.29 3.02⁎
Selling orientation − 0.10 1.07 – – −0.10 1.55 better quality than the structural one (F2 = 0.16). However, also
Team selling 0.18 2.03⁎ – – 0.18 2.04⁎ endogenous constructs are correctly estimated with a minimum F2
Dependent variable: Synergistic of 0.13 for role performance and an average F2 of 0.16.
solutions
Customer orientation 0.30 3.23⁎ – – 0.30 3.43⁎
Selling orientation − 0.17 1.94⁎ – – −0.16 2.14⁎ 4.1.3. The mediating role of synergistic solutions and role performance:
Team selling 0.22 3.12⁎ – – 0.22 2.98⁎ comparing alternative models
Dependent variable: Customer trust To test a causal order between relational outcomes, we compared
Role performance 0.26 2.74⁎ – – 0.17 1.89⁎ Model 1 to Model 2 and 3. In Model 2, as shown in Table 3, the direct
Synergistic solutions 0.41⁎ 4.69⁎ – – 0.28 3.04⁎
path between customer orientation and customer trust is significant
Customer orientation – – 0.47 4.22⁎ 0.33 3.00⁎
Selling orientation – – − 0.15 2.18⁎ −0.08 1.04 (B = 0.47) as well as the direct path between selling orientation and
Team selling – – 0.10 1.28 0.01 0.07 customer trust (B = −0.15). However, team selling has no significant
⁎Sig. if above 1.64 for 1-tailed test. direct effect on customer trust (B = 0.10). In comparison with our initial
a
Model 1: original model; Model 2: model without synergistic solutions and role model (i.e. Model 1), excluding role performance and synergistic
performance; Model 3: full model including direct paths between customer orientation, solutions results in a drop of R2 to 0.30 for customer trust (see Table 4).
team selling and customer trust. The goodness of fit index (GoF) stays stable (GoF = 0.45) as no major
b
Standardized path coefficients.
c changes can be observed in term of communality. Table 5 shows a
T-values.
similar average cv-communality for both models (H2 = 0.54 for Model
1 and H2 = 0.54 for Model 2) but a higher average cv-redundancy for
Because, one of our goals is to test a causal order between Model 2 (F2 = 0.16 for Model 1 and F2 = 0.22 for Model 2). These results
relational outcomes in the model, we need to examine if synergistic indicate, on average, a better quality of the prediction of customer
solutions and role performance act as mediating variables between trust for Model 2. However, it is important to keep in mind the lower
individual behaviors and customer trust. We address this issue by explained variance (R2) in comparison with Model 1.
comparing alternative model formulations to our baseline model (i.e. In Model 3 (see Table 4), just like in Model 1, hypotheses H1
Model 1). In Model 2 role performance and synergistic solutions were (B = 0.29), H2 (B = 0.30), H4 (B = −0.16), H5 (B = 0.18), H6 (B = 0.22), H7
excluded and the three strategic account manager's behaviors were (B = 0.17) and H8 (B = 0.28) are significant, whereas hypothesis H3 is
directly linked to customer trust. Model 3 includes both the direct and non-significant (B = −0.10). In this model the direct path between
indirect paths from behaviors to customer trust. customer orientation and customer trust is significant (B = 0.33),
We will first discuss the results of Model 1 and then compare them whereas team selling and selling orientation have no significant direct
to those of Model 2 and 3. impact on customer trust (B = 0.01 and B = −0.08, respectively).
As indicated in Table 4, this third model shows significant increases
4.1.2. Structural model and hypothesis testing in the explained variance for customer trust (R2 = 0.44) as well as a
Table 3 reports the standardized parameters for Model 1, which are significant increase in average redundancy (F2 = 0.47). In comparison
obtained from bootstrap simulation (Chin, 1998a). T-values confirm
the significance of hypotheses H1 (B = 0.30), H2 (B = 0.30), H4 (B =
−0.17), H5 (B = 0.18), H6 (B = 0.22), H7 (B = 0.26) and H8 (B = 0.41). One Table 4
Explained variance (R2), communality, redundancy and goodness-of-fit index for
hypothesis (H3) is non-significant (B = −0.10).
Models 1, 2, 3 and 4
The structural model demonstrates predictive power as the
variance explained (R2) in key endogenous constructs was 0.20 for Construct Model 1a Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
role performance, 0.27 for synergistic solutions, 0.34 for customer Trust b c
0.34 (0.83) 0.14 d
0.30 (0.83) 0.20 0.44 (0.83) 0.21 0.43 (0.83) 0.22
trust. The findings show that our model (i.e. Model 1) explains a large Role 0.20 (0.71) 0.11 – (–) – 0.20 (0.71) 0.11 0.20 (0.71) 0.11
part of the variance in the endogenous variables, with an average R2 of performance
0. 27. Communality and redundancy coefficients are also presented in Synergistic 0.27 (0.85) 0.15 – (–) – 0.27 (0.85) 0.15 0.27 (0.85) 0.15
solutions
Table 4. They can be used essentially in the same way as the R2, since Customer – (0.77) – – (0.76) – – (0.76) – – (0.76) –
they reflect the relative amount of explained variance for latent and orientation
manifest variables. Selling – (0.56) – – (0.56) – – (0.56) – – (0.56) –
An important part of model evaluation is the examination of fit orientation
Team selling – (0.75) – – (0.75) – – (0.75) – – (0.75) –
indexes reflecting the predictive power of estimated inner and outer
Average 0.27 (0.73e) 0.13 0.30 (0.68) 0.20 0.30 (0.73) 0.47 0.30 (0.73) 0.47
model relationships. As pointed out by Tenenhaus et al. (2005, p.173), GoFf 0.44 0.45 0.47 0.47
“… differently from SEM-ML, PLS path modeling does not optimize
NOTE:
any scalar function so that it naturally lacks of an index that can a
Model 1: original model; Model 2: model without synergistic solutions and role
provide the user with a global validation of the model (as it is instead performance; Model 3: full model including direct paths between customer orientation,
with χ2 and related measures in SEM-ML). The GoF represents an team selling and customer trust; Model 4: final model.
b
operational solution to this problem as it may be meant as an index for Explained variance.
c
Communality: Communality coefficients are equal to the squared correlations
validating the PLS model globally”.
between manifest variables and their associated latent variables.
A general criterion for evaluating goodness-of-fit (GoF) is to d
Redundancy: Redundancy coefficients reflect the joint predictive power of the
calculate the geometric mean of the average communality and the inner and outer model relationships.
average R2 (Tenenhaus et al., 2005). According to the results in Table 4, e
Computed as a weighted average of the different communalities with the weights
GoF = √[(0.73) × (0.27)] = 0.44, which can be considered as satisfactory being the number of manifest variables per each construct (see Tenenhaus et al., 2005,
p. 180).
(Tenenhaus et al., 2005;). f
GoF = \\= [(average communality) × (average R2)]. Average communality is computed
-

Then, the blindfolding approach proposed by Wold (1982) was as a weighted average of the different communalities with the weights being the
followed to calculate the cv-communality and cv-redundancy indexes number of indicators per latent variable ( Tenenhaus et al., 2005).
 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311 307

Table 5 Kenny (1986), to establish mediation the following conditions must be

Blindfolding results: cv-communality (H2) and cv-redundancy (F2) for Models 1, 2, 3 satisfied: (a) customer orientation, selling orientation and/or team
and 4
selling must have a significant effect on customer trust in Model 2, (b)
Construct Model 1a Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 customer orientation, selling orientation and/or team selling must have
a significant effect on role performance and/or synergistic solutions in
Customer trust 0.69b (0.14)c 0.69 (0.22) 0.69 (0.35) 0.69 (0.34)
Role performance 0.41 (0.13) – (–) 0.41 (0.13) 0.41 (0.12) Model 3, (c) role performance and/or synergistic solutions must have a
Synergistic solutions 0.65 (0.21) – (–) 0.65 (0.21) 0.65 (0.21) significant effect on customer trust in Model 3, and (d) the effect of
Customer orientation 0.56 (–) 0.56 (–) 0.56 (–) 0.56 (–) customer orientation, selling orientation and/or team selling on cus-
Selling orientation 0.32 (–) 0.33 (–) 0.33 (–) 0.33 (–)
tomer trust must be lower in Model 3 than in Model 2. There is perfect
Team selling 0.59 (–) 0.60 (–) 0.60 (–) 0.60 (–)
Average 0.54 (0.16) 0.54 (0.22) 0.54 (0.23) 0.54 (0.22) mediation if the direct effect of customer orientation, selling orientation
and team selling on customer trust is not significant in Model 3.
NOTE:
The cv-communality index (H2) has been described as a cross-validated R2 between the block
Regarding the relationship between customer orientation and
manifest variables and their own latent variable (Tenenhaus et al., 2005, p. 174). In other customer trust (see Table 3 for the path coefficients estimates of Models
words, the cv-communality measures the capacity of the path model to predict the manifest 2 and 3), we found that (a) customer orientation has a significant effect on
variables directly from their own latent variable by cross-validation. It uses only the customer trust in the absence of role performance and synergistic
measurement model. The mean of the cv-communality indexes can be used to measure the
solutions (Model 2), (b) customer orientation has a significant effect on
global quality of the measurement model if they are positive for all blocks of variables.
The quality of each structural equation is measured, instead, by the cv-redundancy role performance and synergistic solutions (Model 3), (c) role performance
index (i.e. Stone–Geisser's Q2). Tenenhaus et al. (2005, p. 174) call it F2. They define it as and synergistic solutions have a significant effect on customer trust
a kind of cross-validated R2 between the manifest variables of an endogenous latent (Model 3), and (d) the effect of customer orientation on customer trust is
variable and all the manifest variables associated with the latent variables explaining reduced (but is still significant) in the presence of role performance and
the endogenous latent variable, using the estimated structural model. More specifically,
synergistic solutions (Model 3). Therefore, we can conclude that the
it measures the capacity of the path model to predict the endogenous manifest variables
indirectly from a prediction of their own latent variable using the related structural relationship between customer orientation and customer trust is partially
relation, by cross-validation (Tenenhaus et al., 2005, p. 181). The mean of the various cv- mediated by role performance and synergistic solutions.
redundancy indexes (F2) related to the endogenous blocks can be used to measure the As for the relationship between selling orientation and customer trust,
global quality of the structural model, if they are positive for all endogenous blocks. The
there is no mediating effect of role performance as condition (b) set by
model has predictive relevance if F2 N 0 and, if F2 N1, the observed endogenous variables
can be perfectly predicted by the model (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982). Baron and Kenny (1986) is not satisfied (i.e. there is no significant
a
Model 1: original model; Model 2: model without synergistic solutions and role relationship in Model 3 between selling orientation and role perfor-
performance; Model 3: full model including direct paths between customer orientation, mance). However, we found that all the four mediating conditions were
team selling and customer trust; Model 4: final model. satisfied for synergistic solutions. Specifically (see Table 3), it can be seen
b
Cv-communality (H2).
c that (a) selling orientation has a significant effect on customer trust in the
Cv-redundancy (F2).
absence of synergistic solutions (Model 2), (b) selling orientation has a
significant effect on synergistic solutions (Model 3), (c) synergistic
with Models 1 and 2, results indicate for Model 3 a similar goodness- solutions has a significant effect on customer trust (Model 3), and (d)
of-fit index (GoF = 0.47). Regarding the overall quality of the measure- the effect of selling orientation on customer trust is reduced in the
ment and prediction, no significant changes can be noticed (average presence of synergistic solutions (Model 3). Furthermore, the path from
cv-communality = 0.54 and average cv-redundancy = 0.23). selling orientation to customer trust is not significant (Model 3). Therefore,
Starting from these results, we evaluated the mediating role of both we can conclude that the relationship between selling orientation and
synergistic solutions and role performance. According to Baron and customer trust is fully mediated by synergistic solutions.

Fig. 2. Final model of strategic account managers' contribution to customer trust.

308 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
Finally, the relationship between team selling and customer trust is
not mediated by role performance nor by synergistic solutions as con-
dition (a) set by Baron and Kenny (1986) is not satisfied (i.e. the path
between team selling and customer trust is not significant in Model 2).
Fig. 2 depicts the final model (Model 4), as well as the path
coefficients, t-tests and R2. Additional results are provided in Tables 4
and 5. Our final model is identical to Model 3, except for the fact that
the non significant paths are not included.
5. Conclusion
By means of an empirical research on 127 firms, this article
explored how strategic account managers can contribute to the
development of customer trust in a relational context.
Our study provides insights into the complex interrelationships
between some of the strategic account manager's behaviors and
relevant relational outcomes. More specifically, our findings show that
strategic account managers can positively affect trust in two ways.
First, they can provide synergistic solutions by successfully improving
the combined effort of the two parties to accomplish innovative joint
solutions. Secondly, they can perform their task as expected by the
strategic account, thus attaining a good role performance. As shown in
Fig. 2, both causal paths are significant, with synergistic solutions having a
stronger impact (B=0.30) than role performance (B=0.17). Together, with
the direct impact of customer orientation, they explain almost half of the
variance in customer trust (R2 =0.43), indicating that we identified key
drivers of customer trust (see Fig. 2).
To enhance the attainment of synergistic solutions, strategic account
managers should increase their customer orientation and promote team
selling (B = 0.30 and 0.22 respectively). Our findings suggest that
adopting a selling orientation significantly decreases the provision of
synergistic solutions (B = −0.16). As indicated in Fig. 2, taken together,
customer orientation, selling orientation and team selling explain nearly
one third of the variance in synergistic solutions (R2 = 0.27).
To improve their role performance, strategic account managers
should be customer oriented and reinforce team selling, as both paths
are significant and positive (B = 0.32 and B = 0.19). No significant
impact on the strategic account manager's role performance emerged
for selling orientation (H3 is not supported). Because the variance
explained in role performance is quite limited (19%), additional
research is needed to better identify its drivers.
Our results also highlight the mediating effect of role performance and
synergistic solutions. Prior studies, such as the one developed by Schultz
and Evans (2002), have neither conceptually investigated nor formally
tested this mediating role. We extended prior research by testing this role.
Interestingly, we found differences. While the role performance construct
plays a (partially) mediating role between customer orientation and
customer trust, it does not play this role between selling orientation or
team selling and customer trust. Furthermore, synergistic solutions fully
mediate the relationship between selling orientation and customer trust
and partially mediate the one between customer orientation and
customer trust. However, synergistic solutions do not play a mediating
role between team selling and customer trust.
5.1. Research contribution
Homburg, Workman and Jensen (2000) identified strategic account
management as a highly important subject for academic research and
highlighted the scarcity of studies on this area. However, with very few
notable exceptions (Boles, Barksdale & Johnson,1996; Abratt & Kelly, 2002)
the specific topic of strategic account managers' behaviors is almost
unexplored. In addition to addressing some important limitations in the
study by Schultz and Evans (2002), the theoretical contribution of our
research to current knowledge can be summarized as follows.
First, this research confirms the general assumption that strategic
account managers can significantly contribute to the creation of trust in
business relationships. More specifically, this study identifies two
relational outcomes which are antecedents of customer trust, and some
of their behavioral drivers. Findings of our study clearly show that the
adoption of some specific classes of strategic account managers' behaviors
(i.e. customer orientation, team selling) can contribute to the creation of
strong and long-lasting positive relationships with customers, by
increasing relational outcomes, thus finally fostering customer trust. Our
study also suggests that selling orientation significantly decreases
synergistic solutions and hence customer trust.
Second, our research is one of the very few empirical studies on selling
behaviors carried out in non-English speaking countries. This contribution
is appreciable, as cross-cultural validation of constructs has sometimes led
to controversial findings (e.g. Herche, Swenson & Verbeke, 1996).
Third, our study tests separately distinct hypotheses for the two
dimensions of the SOCO scale, and it finds evidence of opposite
impacts for each of them.
Finally, we developed and tested a new construct (team selling) which
is particularly relevant and consistent with the relational approach, as well
as with literature on strategic account management. Although the
association between team selling and relational outcomes has already
been postulated by anecdotal evidence and theoretical articles, the
importance of its empirical validation should not be underestimated.
5.2. Managerial contribution
This study provides sales managers with some evidence of those
behaviors strategic account managers should adopt to successfully
fulfill their role as contributors in building long-term relationships.
The general managerial implication is that companies willing to build
and foster long term relationships with their accounts should facilitate
and stimulate the adoption of these behaviors on the part of their
strategic account managers.
Our findings highlight the importance of team selling. Companies may
facilitate the adoption of team selling by improving cross functional
relationships in the selling firm. This implies increasing inter-functional
integration through appropriate changes at four different levels: company
culture, organization structure, integration mechanisms and personal
characteristics of individuals (Rouziés et al., 2005). Hence, companies
should first of all carefully select candidates for strategic account manager
positions, investigating their skills and attitudes (e.g. team playing).
Secondly, companies should design training programs specifically aimed
at helping strategic account managers to develop those skills, abilities and
competencies (e.g. conflict handling) which are necessary to successfully
interact with colleagues from different departments. Then, team-based
rewards and incentives should be adopted in order to increase cooperation
in teams (Yilmaz & Hunt, 2001). Finally, strategic account managers should
be supported by integration mechanisms aimed at increasing cross-
functional collaboration and information exchange (Kahn and Mentzer,
1998).
Our findings also show the importance of synergistic solutions in a
strategic account management setting. Developing synergistic solu-
tions implies both understanding the customer's value system (which
in turn typically requires an investment in information systems) and
finding creative solutions to customer problems. In addition to critical
characteristics of the individual strategic account manager such as
creativity and entrepreneurship (Wilson & Millman, 2003) the latter
can be fostered by a corporate culture which stimulates risk taking and
empowerment (Anderson & Huang, 2006).
From a strategic standpoint, investing in the building of long term
relationships may imply the sacrifice of short-term outcomes. This has
important implications both for firms and individual key account
managers. Companies should modify their goal setting procedures as
well as their performance evaluation systems. Findings of our research
suggest that when designing reward schemes for strategic account
managers, sales managers may, at least in part, evaluate their behavioral
performance and measure indicators of relational performance, such as
 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311 309

customer retention rate or customer satisfaction (Sharma, 1997). Also, the
shift from short term to long term goals typically implies accepting a
higher level of risk, because investments on customer relationships often
pay off only in the long run. To better manage risk, companies and key
account managers should invest on customer portfolio analysis and
management to optimize the allocation of scarce resources. Increasing role
performance, building synergistic solutions and customer trust is costly,
and the return on such investments in relationships with customers is
often difficult to predict and hard to measure. Hence, the ability of key
account managers to invest discretionary resources on selected customers
with high potential and low risk becomes increasingly crucial (Pardo, Salle
& Spencer, 1995; Ryals & Knox, 2005).
To sum up, the emphasis on a trust-building, long-term oriented
relationship selling approach suggests the need to achieve greater
control over the actual implementation of relational behaviors on the
part of their strategic account managers (see for example Cravens et
al., 1993; Grant & Cravens, 1996). In turn, this may call for radical
changes in the organizational structure of the sales department, as
well as in sales force control systems. For example, companies may
design strategic account management structures or formal sales
teams. Similarly, firms may shift from an independent to an employee
sales force (Dishman, 1996; Ross, Dalsace & Anderson, 2005), or from
outcome-based to behavior-based sales force control systems.
5.3. Limitations and directions for future research
This study has several limitations.
First, the relatively small sample size can be regarded as a
limitation. In fact we did not take into account differences in strategic
account management typologies. Using larger samples should allow
researchers to explore the potential impact of the adoption of different
approaches in implementing strategic account management programs
(Homburg et al., 2002). By definition, however, strategic account
relationships are not numerous, which makes large-scale research in
this field difficult. Instead of neglecting empirical research and relying
on conceptual frameworks only, we recommend the application of
statistical methods that are particularly well suited for small samples
(e.g. PLS and the bootstrap method). In this way, complex models can
still be estimated in a stable manner.
Second, we focused on strategic account managers as key informants
and used self-reporting measures. Although we used a number of
procedural and statistical remedies against the potential problems
associated with common method bias and single respondent bias, future
studies on the topic should ideally use dyads of respondents.
Third, as this study is cross-sectional, assigning cause must be done
with caution. Since it is focused on a dynamic phenomenon
(i.e. relationships), a longitudinal study would be more appropriate
(Frankwick, Porter & Crosby, 2001). Finally, the measurement scales
adopted in this study, although used successfully in previous research
on the topic, may not fully capture all the facets of the underlying
constructs. Hence, in future research, more comprehensive measures
would be welcome.
Many research implications can be derived from this study. Future
research on the topic should broaden our framework by including
other classes of relational behaviors and possibly “transactional”
behaviors (e.g. hard selling techniques) which may decrease customer
trust (Hawes, Strong & Winick, 1996). The simultaneous consideration
of opposing behaviors could allow the comparison of their different
impacts on relevant relational outcomes.
Similarly, different measures of performance could also be considered,
e.g. by comparing the impact of relational behaviors on long-term versus
short-term performance indicators. In fact, relational behaviors may pay off
only in the long run, and may even be detrimental to immediate sales. In
our study we focused on “soft” outcomes. This could be regarded as a
limitation. However, it should be noted that hard measures may not be very
meaningful in KAM relationships, because vendors very often invest on
such relationships for other reasons (e.g. strengthening their image as
suppliers of top firms in the market, fostering innovation by acquiring their
customer's knowledge and capabilities, etc.) and because in many cases in
these relationships economic performance may be evaluated only in the
long run. Wengler, Ehret and Saab (2006) empirically found that the vast
majority of companies adopting KAM do not use hard measures of
performance neither to set goals nor to evaluate performance. Findings of
this study clearly show that performance evaluation is almost exclusively
based on soft outcomes like customer trust and customer satisfaction. Using
hard measures of performance in KAM research is very difficult and may
even be misleading. Future studies on the topic willing to incorporate hard
measures of performance should probably also investigate the goals behind
the adoption of KAM in the specific sample of vendors used in the analysis.
Moreover, there is a need to understand more clearly the
organizational and personal factors supporting the adoption of
relational behaviors on the part of strategic account managers. In
terms of organizational variables, we suggest focusing the attention
on the impact of sales force control systems and training programs on
strategic account managers' behaviors. As for personal variables, the
examination of the influence of personality traits and skills of strategic
account managers would be beneficial.
Finally, we stress the importance of making international comparisons,
by means of replications and extensions of research in different cultural
contexts.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments and suggestions.
Appendix A
T-test of difference in means of the constructs between early and late
respondents
Construct T Sig⁎
Customer orientation −0.91 0.39
Selling orientation −0.65 0.52
Team selling −0.29 0.77
Customer trust −0.63 0.54
Role performance 0.80 0.44
Synergistic solutions −0.36 0.72
Appendix B
Scale Items
Construct Measure description
Customer For each statement, please indicate how often you act as
orientationa described with the strategic account you selected…
I try to figure out the strategic account's needs (custo1)
I have the strategic account's best interest in mind (custo2)⁎
I take a problem solving approach in selling products or services
to the strategic account (custo3)
I recommend products or services that are best suited to solving
problems (custo4)
I try to find out which kinds of products or services would be
most helpful to the strategic account (custo5)
Selling For each statement, please indicate how often you act as
orientationa described with the strategic account you selected…
I try to sell as much as I can, rather than satisfying the strategic
account (sello1)
I find it necessary to stretch the truth in my sales presentations
(sello2)
I try to sell as much as I can to convince the strategic account to
buy, event if it is more than wise customers would buy (sello3)
I paint too rosy a picture of the products or services to make them
(continued on next page)
310 P. Guenzi et al. / Industrial Marketing Management 38 (2009) 300–311
Appendix B (continued)
Construct Measure description
sound as good as possible (sello4)
I make recommendations based on what I can sell and not on the
basis of the strategic account's long-term satisfaction (sello5)
Team sellingb Please indicate how much you agree with the following
statements…
I help this strategic account to get in touch with the different
specialists of my firm when needed (team1)
I place different experts from my organization at the disposal of
this strategic account (team2)
I organize visits and meetings between the different departments
of both companies (supplier and strategic account) (team3)
I share information about this strategic account with my
colleagues from other departments (team4)
I spend time coordinating the different employees of my firm
involved in the relationship with this strategic account (team5)
Trustb The strategic account you selected would say about you that…
You can be trusted to get the job done right (trust1)
You could be trusted to make emergency decisions, if nobody
could be reached (trust2)
You do your job with integrity (trust3)
You will not undertake any actions to harm this strategic account
interests (trust4)
Synergistic The combined results of this person and me have resulted in…
solutionsb Innovative solutions to problems (syne1)
Ways to get better results for both companies (syne2)
Accomplishments that neither of us could have achieved
individually (syne3)
Role In your point of view, how much would the strategic account you
performancec selected say you have helped him/her…
To solve problems (role1)
To develop strategic plans that enable both parties to win (role2)
To enhance outcomes (role3)
⁎Item deleted based on refinement procedures described in the text.
a organizations that use behavior-based sales management processes. Industrial
Measured on a 9 point scale ranging from “Never” to “Always”.
b
Measured on a 7 point scale ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”.
c
Measured on a 7 point scale ranging from “Very little” to “A great deal”.
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Paolo Guenzi is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Bocconi University and SDA
Bocconi School of Management, Milan, Italy. His main research interests include sales
management and relationship marketing. He has published in international journals
such as Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, International
Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of Marketing Management, Interna-
tional Journal of Sport Marketing & Sponsorship.
Laurent Georges is an Associate Professor of Marketing at IUT-Tarbes, Toulouse,
France. His main research interest is key account management and relationship
marketing. He has published in international journals such as Industrial Marketing
Management and Journal of Selling and Major Account Management.
Catherine Pardo is an Associate Professor of Business-to-Business Marketing at EM-Lyon,
France, member of the OCE – EM Lyon (Organisations, Careers and new Elites) research
centre. Her research interests include key account management and marketing
organization.