| Global account management (GAM) refers to specialized personnel or teams within a global supplier organization that centrally coordinates worldwide selling activities to serve a global key customer account. On the one hand, global accounts rationalize purchasing through a limited number of preferred suppliers; on the other hand, global competition continuously involves sophisticated new rivals. The result is hypercompetition---a rapidly escalating competitive environment in which competitive advantages are created and eroded quickly. Suppliers must employ GAM to remain competitive in the global market.;Three crucial GAM organizational processes were derived using a discovery oriented approach based on interviews with twenty executives from six Fortune 500 companies, and analysis of forty cases pertaining to the global account management activities of thirty companies. The resulting theoretical framework was empirically assessed with cross-industry and cross-country survey data. The theoretical framework addresses two questions: (1) what organizational processes are critical for a successful GAM capability? and (2) what conditions facilitate these processes?;Using Dynamic Capability Theory (DCT) and a discovery-oriented approach, this dissertation develops a Global Account Management (GAM) framework that includes three GAM organizational processes, their antecedents, and consequences.;This study also makes a contribution by empirically testing the framework. Rigorous empirical analysis is generally lacking in the GAM and DCT literature. Data were collected with the help of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA), and structural equations modeling was used to test the conceptual model. Three findings are presented: (1) GAM capability has six sub-processes: customer intelligence acquisition, competitor intelligence acquisition, inter-organizational coordination, inter-functional coordination, cross-country coordination, and reconfiguration; (2) GAM capability is facilitated by three antecedents of horizontal support, goal congruency, and market dynamism; (3) GAM capability has significant positive effects on GAM program performance and GAM contribution to an organization. |
