Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Sales and marketing resistance to Key Account M...

Associated organisational unit

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

Sales and marketing resistance to Key Account Management implementation: an ethnographic investigation

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>10/2014
<mark>Journal</mark>Industrial Marketing Management
Issue number7
Volume43
Number of pages15
Pages (from-to)1157-1171
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date30/07/14
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The study of Key Account Management (KAM) is ubiquitous in business-to-business marketing research. Despite its importance within B2B research, however, few authors have questioned why actors may actually resist its adoption. In a novel 18-month longitudinal ethnographic study following one organization’s endeavours to implement KAM (Fitcorp), we examine the approaches adopted by organizational members to resist KAM implementation. Our understanding of how and why actors might resist KAM implementation reveals a continuum of resistance strategies that vary in severity (spanning disengagement to hostility). Further, we find a number of explanations actors draw on to justify their resistance to KAM implementation. These findings are discussed and implications for theory and practice are offered.