The Role of Formal Information Sharing in Key Account Team Effectiveness: Does Informal Control Matter and When

Christine Jaushyuam Lai () and Ying Yang
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Christine Jaushyuam Lai: EM - EMLyon Business School

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Abstract: Team selling is a useful approach for retaining strategically important accounts in business-to-business markets. For key account sales teams, ensuring adequate access to information about customer needs offers sustainable competitive advantages. However, the internal alignment of market information remains a recurring managerial issue in key account team selling. This study develops a moderated mediation model to identify management strategies that encourage team members' formal information sharing, which in turn improves team effectiveness. Analysis of a multilevel data set comprising 37 fluid key account teams reveals that customer orientation and task interdependence increase formal information sharing among team members. Managers' exercise of professional control strengthens the positive impact that formal information sharing has on team satisfaction. However, the practice has a dysfunctional influence on the positive effect of task interdependence on formal information sharing. Firms with key account management (KAM) programs must decide whether the marginal benefits attained by advocating such professional control outweigh the possible drawbacks.

Keywords: Key account management; customer orientation; task interdependence; information sharing; team effectiveness; multilevel analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11-13
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 2017, 37 (4), 313-331 p

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02312306

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