مدیر حساب جهانی به عنوان کارآفرین سیاسی

Early work in key account management (KAM) led to the development of a Relationship Development Model that provided the basis for much of the work of other researchers in the field of KAM. More recently, attention has turned to the emerging management task of global account management (GAM). A major concern of GAM studies has been the nature of the role of the global account manager and a number of models that explore the notion of the global account manager as political entrepreneur have been developed. The aim of this paper is to introduce a contextual model of political–entrepreneurial behaviour and to integrate this with previously published work on the political entrepreneur, the model of global account manager boundary-spanning behaviour and the Relationship Development Model.

A recurring question emerging from our research, consultancy, and management training workshops on global account management (GAM) is: What is the nature of the role performed by global account managers? Global account managers are normally recruited/promoted from within multinational selling companies, typically from the pool of national account/sales managers, on the assumption that thorough knowledge and experience of the company's organisation and products/services are essential prerequisites. They perform a boundary-spanning role across two important organisational interfaces: first, the internal interface between global and national account management, which is often embedded in a headquarters/subsidiary relationship; and second, the external interface between the selling company and the dispersed activities of its global accounts. Were the role only concerned with boundary spanning, then it would be a little different, although with added degrees of complexity, from the role performed by general line sales people. Its obvious complexity and developing strategic importance suggest that we may be witnessing the emergence of a fundamentally new managerial position. In recognition of the need to navigate sensitive commercial/political aspects of these interface relationships, we have dubbed the global account manager as performing the role of political entrepreneur. In an earlier paper [15], we have explored the boundary-spanning roles that may be played by the global account manager in terms of the degree of identification they might display towards their own organisation and that of the global account. In this paper, we will build upon that discussion and introduce a model that explores the degree to which the application of political and entrepreneurial skills may be impacted upon by contextual factors, and how the application of these skills may be related to stages of relational development. The nature of the global account manager role and how it is performed have significant implications for companies seeking to recruit, develop and retain global account managers. Further, an understanding of the contextual factors that impact upon the role will influence the way they are deployed and how effectively they perform the role to enhance the quality and profitability of relational interaction. Our paper commences with a critical review of the literature on boundary-spanning roles and goes on to explore recent thinking around the relationship skills that are required for strategic account management in a global context [19]. Our recent exploratory research on GAM interface relationships is then interpreted using two conceptual models. The first revisits our previous work [15] and emphasises global account manager dilemmas and transitions at the external interface, and the second examines the application of political and entrepreneurial skills within the context of developing relationships. These capture the essence of the global account manager as political entrepreneur, giving due consideration to contextual factors such as organisational complexity, cultural diversity and industrial setting.

In this paper, we have explored the nature of the role performed by the global account manager as political entrepreneur. Using a number of conceptual models, we have identified dominant managerial role behaviours at the buyer–seller interface and provided insights into the kind of political and entrepreneurial meta-skills/competencies required in performing the boundary-spanning role. The occupation of these identification spaces and the application of political entrepreneurial skills have further been linked to the stage of development reached in the GAM relationship. We are aware that in this newly emerging field, we have merely scratched the surface of the role of the global account manager and hope that our work will serve to stimulate others to explore what we believe to be an important area of interest.