State-of-the-art of key account management in academia and science

Abstract

In the marketing management literature, key account management is a well known marketing management conception for managing business relationships. The late 1970s and early 1980s have seen a rise of interest in key account management research²² which further increased in the 1980s and 1990s together with the growing interest in relationship marketing [Berry 1983; Spekman/Johnston 1986; Gummesson 1987; Webster 1992; Morgan/Hunt 1994].²³ Key account management, which developed alongside and out of the relationship marketing literature, is defined as a “marketing management program focusing one customer” and has ultimately to be seen as the result of an increasing market orientation. Due to key account management’s various research streams no coherent concept of key account management exists in the marketing management literature so far. As many different research areas in key account management emerged over time, each key account management approach draws upon different theoretical and empirically tested constructs without aiming at establishing a coherent as well as consistent concept of key account management.²⁴