ایجاد ارزش و عملکرد فروش شرکت: نقش واسطه مدیریت حساب استراتژیک و درک رابطه

Research on relationship management has extolled the virtue of sellers creating value for their customers. Indeed, loyal relationships, defined as repeated business exchanges, tend to flourish when firms create and deliver value to their customers. While few argue this premise, questions remain regarding the precise delineation of a firm's value creation competence and the mechanism by which it influences the firm's performance. In the current study, the authors define the value creation competence concept and find empirical evidence for its positive effects on firm sales performance (e.g., new customer leads, close rates, retention, revenue, etc.). Interestingly, the results suggest this effect is mediated by strategic account management and the perception of the relationship held between buyer and seller. Both of these findings have implications in establishing that a firm's value creation competence translates into improved sales performance, mediated by strategic account management and relationship perceptions.

Creating and delivering value for customers has been studied in the marketing literature for many years. Vargo and Lusch (2011) even referenced Plato's comments made over 2000 years ago regarding the need for exchange. Anderson and Narus, 1998 and Anderson and Narus, 2004 suggested that companies must first understand what customers value (through market sensing and other market-oriented activities) to be able to create said value for their customers. Furthermore, they proposed that by providing value, firms perform better and exhort additional rents; that is, firms gained additional revenue due to the value the companies delivered to their customers (Anderson & Narus, 1995). However, as McNaughton, Osborne, and Imrie (2002) noted, the association between value, market orientation, and firm performance has been tenuous at best. Indeed, a multitude of studies have examined the links from market orientation to better firm performance with mixed results (Cano et al., 2004, Kirca et al., 2005, Kohli and Jaworski, 1990 and Narver and Slater, 1990). In their meta-analysis, Cano et al. (2004) found that better performance by firms positively related to market orientation; however, the results of the analyses depended upon the sample and how variables were measured. The Kirca et al. (2005) meta-analysis found similar results but, due to the larger size of this study, the authors were able to delve deeper into other factors and find further effects from cultural factors, as well as the type of performance (e.g., costs versus revenues) measured. While meta-analyses on market orientation–firm performance linkages are enlightening, the opportunities to study mediation effects as well as value creating mechanisms are missing in the extant literature and, therefore, the ability to provide additional insights is curtailed (Kirca et al., 2005). While the strategy literature has generally shown positive associations between market orientation and firm performance, less is known regarding the intervening value creation methods. For instance, Jaworski and Kohli (1993) showed that organizational performance is reliably influenced by a firm's market orientation, even when environmental factors are adverse. However, even this seminal paper did not investigate the mediation mechanism for the influence of market orientation on a firm's performance. Further, market orientation is a much broader construct, covering intelligence creation, intelligence dissemination within the organization, and organizational responsiveness (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993 and Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). Market orientation has wide-ranging consequences, extending beyond firm performance by influencing organizational commitment and esprit-de-corps. Thus, market orientation is an overarching construct with broadly generalizable influences across several consequent constructs. In contrast, a firm's ability to create value for its customers is more focused on firm performance. Interestingly, market-orientation studies have examined a firm's performance more qualitatively (e.g., overall performance, performance with respect to competition) rather than quantitatively (e.g., close rates, quota achievement, revenue). Market orientation does not show any influence on a firm's market share (Jaworski & Kohli, 1993). In explaining these results, the researchers suggested that firm performance is a multi-dimensional construct and could be characterized in several ways, including effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability measures. The findings have been less than conclusive, and the ability to create improved firm performance via seller value remains a rather pristine research area. Thus, it is important to examine factors influencing a firm's sales performance in more concrete terms (e.g., close rates, revenue). Examining a firm's ability to create value and investigating that value's effect on firm performance are obviously of great significance. Additionally, understanding the indirect influences will be important. For instance, McNaughton et al. (2002) observed that the influence of market orientation on firm performance may be affected by several intermediate variables that are developed by acquiring knowledge and skill in the course of continuous interactions with the customer. Similarly, understanding the intervening linkages translating value to performance is of equal significance with added implications for practitioners. Sellers can create superior value if they understand the customers' business, their conversion challenges, and their markets. Such a selling firm's organizational routines must be designed to create a robust understanding of a customer's business, resulting in better performance for their own firm as well as for the customer. Therefore, sellers with a solid understanding of the customer's business needs and markets would be more competent in creating value for their customers and this understanding cannot be accidentally acquired. As such, a “competence” in the strategy literature is generally defined as a set of “skills and resources which enable the company to achieve superior performance” (Harmsen & Jensen, 2004, p. 535) in a way that is almost impossible for competitors to mimic (Barney, 1991 and Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). Harmsen and Jensen (2004) examined this concept further by suggesting that value creation must tie market demands to the competencies of the firm that are required to meet these demands. Otherwise, resources will be wasted with no benefit to either the customer or the seller. In summary, value creation competence reflects the core ideas of deeply understanding the customers' business needs and strengthening product–service expertise in these chosen areas. Development of such competency in a selling firm, focused on creating customer value, should eventually be reciprocated by the customer. The authors therefore define a firm's value creation competence as the firm's ability to understand and translate customer business needs into superior solutions for customers. Based on this premise of a selling firm's ability to impact customer value, the theoretical contribution of this paper is to extend the B2B value literature by empirically establishing the links between value creation competence and firm sales performance. In addition, the authors examine the mediation effects of the intervening linkages between value creation competence and firm sales performance. In the next section, the extant literature is reviewed in order to develop the conceptual hypotheses to be tested in the analysis. Following the hypotheses development, the method for testing the intervening linkages is then presented, including the variable definitions and a description of the dataset. A discussion of the results follows, including the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings. Finally, the limitations of the article are disclosed, as are suggestions for continued work in this research stream.

In order to test the proposed conceptual model (provided in Fig. 1), a confirmatory factor analysis was first conducted following standard psychometric methods (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). A confirmatory factor analysis was specified in AMOS 17 (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988) to assess the unidimensionality of the scale items within the three identified constructs of value creation-competence, strategic account management, and firm sales performance. Simultaneous evaluation of the measurement and structural model to assess the nomological validity of the proposed model followed. Mediation analysis was tested by comparing rival models via chi-square difference tests (Byrne, 1998). The fit indices of the CFA model indicate a good fit (χ2 (186) = 1310; RMSEA = .06; CFI = .88). Cronbach's alphas evidence good reliability ( Nunnally, 1978) for the three constructs (Value Creation Competence .76; Strategic Account Management .83; Firm Sales Performance .80). Although correlated (r = .81), discriminant validity between the Value Creation Competence and the Strategic Account Management constructs is evidenced by exclusion of the value of 1.00 from the confidence interval for the correlation (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). Accordingly, the conceptual model (Fig. 1) was operationalized to assess measurement and structural aspects simultaneously. Initially, the direct (non-mediated) influence of value creation competence on firm sales performance was assessed by constraining the structural coefficients of the mediation path to zero (Fig. 2a). The model showed a good fit (χ2 (207) = 1391; RMSEA = .06; CFI = .88). All the structural coefficients were significant. Value Creation Competence (VCC) was found to be significantly related to Firm Sales Performance (FSP) (beta = .28, p < .0001). In addition, VCC was significantly related to Strategic Account Management (SAM) (beta = .82, p < .0001), in turn, influencing Relationship Perception (beta = .34, p < .0001). Thus, the results support H1– H3.Next, a rival model excluding Relationship Perception from the conceptualized mediation was tested. The rival model evidenced a poor fit (χ2 (206) = 1531.2; RMSEA = .07; CFI = .86). Finally, the conceptualized model including the Relationship Perception in the mediation path was tested ( Fig. 2b). The model fit was much better (χ2 (205) = 1385; RMSEA = .06; CFI = .88). Further, the incremental fit was significant as evidenced by the improvement in the chi-square values from the direct model (Δχ2 (2) = 6.0 p < .05). This provides evidence that inclusion of the mediation paths in the direct model makes the rival mediation model significantly better. Taken together, the findings provide evidence for the hypothesized conceptual model supporting mediation hypotheses H4a and H4b. Corresponding structural coefficients were significant in the final model ( Fig. 2b). VCC was found to be significantly related to FSP (beta = .26, p < .0001). In addition, VCC was significantly related to Strategic Account Management (SAM) (beta = .81, p < .0001), in turn, influencing Relationship Perception (beta = .12, p < .0001). Finally, Relationship Perception had a significant influence on Firm Sales Performance (beta = .05, p < .03). To begin empirically establishing the intervening causal linkages, the effect of value creation on firm sales performance was examined. As hypothesized, the ability to create value positively impacts firm sales performance. This finding is consistent with much of the broader market orientation literature that stresses the importance of understanding and creating value for customers and the positive effect on firm performance. We posited and eventually showed through empirical analysis that two critical steps help make that translation. First, firms must have the ability to distinguish and then service strategic accounts in the manner these companies expect. Second, customers have to agree that the relationship with the seller is an important one. In other words, customers must perceive that the seller and the buyer are in a mutually beneficial relationship.