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Key account management (KAM) programmes are a way for companies to develop existing relationships and increase sales, thus being proactive and searching for opportunities (which is often expected of KAM). It is also a way to meet changing customer demands arising from changes in purchasing strategy, buyers' mergers and acquisitions and the search for synergies in order to reduce costs. The purpose of this article is to analyse different key account management programmes on how they manage the sales process complexity and customer expectations.

The paper draws on qualitative data collected during a field study of ABB and six of their major customers, based on annual or biannual interviews with 50 individuals within ABB from 1996 to 2006 and three to ten individuals from each of the customers. Interviewees included corporate managers, key account managers and sales personnel/project managers. The customers involved in the study belonged to mining, automotive, process equipment manufacture, building technology, energy production and telecommunication sectors.

In this study three different programmes are identified and analysed: the proactive programme – which is driven by sales opportunity; the reactive programme – which is driven by customer demands; and the organisation‐based programme – which is driven by the belief in customer‐centric organisational units.

The paper identifies sales aspects (complexities) of KAM programmes that are handled in different ways by different types of programmes.

With an empirical base the paper provides a basis for understanding the reasons behind the establishment of several KAM programmes in the same corporation.

This study aims to address how and why do formal key account management (KAM) programmes hinder effective KAM management, and how can the problems of formalization in KAM be overcome. Recent empirical studies have reported an unexpected negative relationship between KAM formalization and performance.

An 18-month (340 days) ethnographic investigation was undertaken in the UK-based subsidiary of a major US sports goods manufacturer. This ethnographic evidence was triangulated with 113 in-depth interviews.

This study identifies how and why managerial reflexivity allows a more effectively combining of formal and post-bureaucratic KAM practices. While formal KAM programmes provide a means to initiate, implement and control KAM, they have an unintended consequence of increasing organizational bureaucracy, which may in the long-run hinder the KAM effectiveness. Heightened reflexivity, including “wayfinding”, is identified as a means to overcome many of these challenges, allowing for reflexively combining formal with post-bureaucratic KAM practices.

The thesis of this paper starts a new line of reflexive KAM research, which draws theoretical influences from the post-bureaucratic turn in management studies.

This study seeks to increase KAM implementation success rates and long-term effectiveness of KAM by conceptualizing the new possibilities offered by reflexive KAM. This study demonstrates how reflexive skills (conceptualized as “KAM wayfinding”) can be deployed during KAM implementation and for its continual improvement. Further, the study identifies how KAM programmes can be used to train organizational learning regarding KAM. Furthermore, this study identifies how and why post-bureaucratic KAM can offer additional benefits after an organization has learned key KAM capabilities.

A new line of enquiry is identified: the reflexive-turn in KAM. This theoretical position allows us to identify existing weakness in the extant KAM literature, and to show a practical means to improve the effectiveness of KAM. This concerns, in particular, the importance of managerial reflexivity and KAM wayfinding as a means to balance the strengths and weaknesses of formal and post-bureaucratic KAM.

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) member schools often compare their faculties’ research records to journal lists of their “peer and aspirational” programs. They often survey faculty and administrators’ perceptions of journal quality; number of Social Sciences Citation Index downloads; or “count” the number of faculty publications – but rarely analyze accounting programs’ actual journal quality lists. To examine this issue, we use a survey of national accounting programs. We identify a set of quality-classified journal lists by sampling 38 programs nationwide, varying by mission (e.g., urban or research), degrees granted (e.g., doctoral degrees in accounting), and national ranking (e.g., classified as a Top 75 Research Program) – from which we derive 1,436 data points that classify 359 journals that appear on these 38 programs’ journal lists. We also describe a case study that an accounting program used to revise its old journal list. We also find that while programs generally use generally accepted “bright lines” among the top three categories (A+, A, A−), they tailor their listings from the wide variety of B or C classified journals to create their own sets of acceptable journals in these categories. The study provides guidance and data for accounting programs who wish to develop or revise their own journal lists. While many studies have examined journal rankings, this is the first study to document the use of journal lists by accounting programs with a wide array of missions.

Examines possible reasons behind the current rapid growth of national accounts. In particular, it examines how relationship marketing/selling has increased the need for national account programs. The article first provides a review of the national account management literature. Then, findings from the study of national accounts are presented. It provides details concerning how suppliers select customers for national account status. Results suggest that there is considerable overlap among firms in how they select and organize national account management teams. Implications for marketing management are provided and areas for future research are detailed.

The decision to establish or retain a national account marketing program is one faced by many firms whose product or service is sold through a business‐to‐business salesforce. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to determine whether the benefits obtained from establishing and/or maintaining a national account program outweigh the costs. This audit provides a structured approach to help firms decide if a NAM program is right for their particular company. Although, because of differences between firms, it is difficult to establish absolute decision rules, the audit can help a company decide whether to establish/maintain a national account marketing program.

It is well known that once regulatory bodies adopt a financial reporting paradigm, it becomes the guiding principle for accounting regulation. This paradigm itself in the field of accounting represents the starting point of the research. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the specific case of the Czech Republic and Romania, namely on aspects concerning regulations in the field of financial instruments.

The authors have approached an a priori economic analysis of national regulations in correlation with international standards inferences. In doing so, they have identified several key issues, which need to be discussed when thoroughly analyzing accounting regulations for financial instruments. Furthermore, the authors have used statistical indicators in order to determine the degree of similarities and dissimilarities between the two national accounting systems and also in correspondence with the international referential.

The results of the performed analysis show a high level of similarities between the two national set of GAAPs and IFRS/IAS, and also among the two of them, still both of them being closer to the international referential than to each other. Research limitations/implications – The paper only approaches formal harmonization in the area of reporting for financial instruments. Moreover, those issues analyzed through the regulations' perspective need to be closely quantified in matters of their actual implementation, pertinent conclusions and correlations being then made regarding the status of each country within the global capital market.

The paper represents a first step within the intended scientific démarche, a priori research having the attribute of generating feedback on hypothetical reporting alternatives prior to implementation.

This parallel analysis performed on the two national accounting systems from the financial instruments' point of view finds results, which are explained through the bonding theory.

Aims to analyze the process of key account management in the industrial sector by highlighting the most recurrent problems that arise linked to this process. The research is based on a period of six years, during which several major industrial groups in France either set up or developed their key account management programs. It represents both a theoretical positioning according to the process of key account management, and the discovery made early on of an emerging picture of this process and the absence of any real understanding of it. Proposes two terms that best sum up key account management research: co‐ordination and transversality.

The purpose of this paper is to identify what managerial implications research related to inter-organizational interfaces has been produced in marketing. For this aim, the authors focus on a specific concept implemented in many firms that operate on business-to-business markets, which is key account management (KAM).

The authors used the Ebsco Database entering “account management” as a key word in the title row. The search provided 51 papers to which the authors added four MSI reports written by Moriarty and Shapiro between 1980 and 1984. The authors then identified such keywords as “managers”, “practitioners”, “marketers”, “managerial”, “business”, and their variations as well as normative words such as “should”, “must”, etc. in order to identify managerial implications.

Four main findings are provided: a clear managerial purpose is affirmed by KAM academic works whether as a central “purpose” of the works or as “implications”; these managerial implications may display different forms (dimensions to be considered, consequences to anticipate, advices); though the managerial scope of KAM works is clearly visible, the sophistication of managerial recommendations remains … limited; the identification of who is exactly “the manager” targeted by the implications remains vague.

The authors discuss the notion of managerial relevance of academic research.

The authors explore sources for practices (whether they are the ones of scholars or managers) that could help “spelling out more effectively the managerial implications.

To the knowledge this is the first work that reviews so precisely how academic articles address to the managerial audience on a precise issue. Furthermore, the authors believe that KAM is an interesting and appropriate field for such a review because it is widely implemented on business markets.

The intellectual capital of a nation (or a region of nations) requires the articulation of a system of variables that helps to uncover and manage the invisible wealth of a country. Most importantly, an emphasis on human capital allows for a better understanding of the hidden values, individuals, enterprises, institutions, and communities that are both current and potential future sources of intellectual wealth. This paper endeavours to address the five research questions. The main outcomes of this paper are the development of a national intellectual capital measurement methodology and index. The NICI is also used within a structural equation model to test several hypotheses related to national intellectual capital development.

The existing literature on key account management (KAM) has focused more on sales forces and management levels than on their evolution. The purpose of this paper is to explore how sales activities can be coordinated to accommodate national and international KAM programs.

The paper is based on a longitudinal study of the industrial conglomerate ABB, 1996‐2008.

The diversity associated with geography and product complexity creates demands for a more flexible organization that can provide a more complete offering portfolio across national boundaries and still handle the demands of local organizations. In addition to internal organizational contingencies, the key factors and driving forces for the development of KAM programs are the marketing and purchasing strategies that buyer and seller firms perceive and encounter.

The data are limited to one corporation and some of its key customers in different industries. Although the internal and construct validity of the findings are strong, the external validity cannot be assessed precisely.

The 12‐year study brings valuable insights to the development of KAM programs in multinational corporations and addresses coordination issues related to geographical and product complexity.