Social capital, relationship quality and key account management effectiveness: a relational perspective

In recent years, key account management (KAM) has been increasingly accepted in the business-to-business market as an approach concerned with establishing and sustaining long-term relationships with a supplier’s most important business customers. Due to the considerable benefits that are associated with implementing this approach, there has been greater emphasis placed by practitioners and academics on the importance of KAM in business-to-business relationships. However, developing effective relationships with key accounts has remained a problematic issue. A major source of this difficulty can be attributed to a lack of understanding regarding the relational aspects of KAM. It is evident that KAM has been practised as a sales oriented approach rather than a relational oriented approach. Despite the rapidly expanding literature on KAM, little attention has been directed towards identifying the relational aspects of key account management and examining their impact on its effectiveness. This research seeks to address this gap in the literature by using the lens of social capital theory and relationship quality to investigate relational antecedents to the effectiveness of supplier- key account relationships.
This research adopted mixed methods. A qualitative study was conducted through interviewing executives, managers and sales representatives who practise KAM in the Saudi market. This qualitative study aimed to explore relational aspects of key account management within this market. Drawing from the literature review and results of the qualitative analysis, the research model and hypotheses were developed. The research model was tested using structural equation modelling (AMOS). The data used to test it was collected from questionnaires sent to 172 supplier firms who are operating in the Saudi market.
The present research offers insights into the major role of relational aspects of key account management in influencing key account management effectiveness. It provides empirical support to the links between social capital, relationship quality and the effectiveness of the supplier-key account relationship. Hence, social capital and relationship quality are recognised as critical to the effectiveness of the supplier-key account relationship. This research contributes to social capital, relationship quality, and key account management literature. Findings from this research would be useful for practitioners in the field of KAM.