TY - JOUR
T1 - Customer relationship management and firm performance
T2 - The mediating role of business strategy
AU - Reimann, Martin
AU - Schilke, Oliver
AU - Thomas, Jacquelyn S.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments For helpful comments, the authors would like to thank the editor G. Tomas M. Hult, former editor David W. Stewart, three anonymous reviewers, as well as Margit Enke, Oliver Heil, Christian Homburg, Richard Köhler, Chris White and the participants of the 2007 Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference, the 2008 Conference on Evolving Marketing Competition in the 21st Century, and the 2008 American Marketing Association Winter Educators’ Conference. We also thank North-western University and Southern Methodist University for financial support. The research was conducted in part while the first author was visiting faculty at EGADE Business School, Campus Monterrey, of Tecnológico de Monterrey.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - As managers and academics increasingly raise issues about the real value of CRM, the authors question its direct and unconditional performance effect. The study advances research on CRM by investigating the role of critical mechanisms underlying the CRM-performance link. Drawing from the sources→positions→performance framework, the authors build a research model in which two strategic postures of firms-differentiation and cost leadership-mediate the effect of CRM on firm performance. This investigation also contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the differential impact of CRM in diverse industry environments. The study analyzes data from in-depth field interviews and a large-scale, crossindustry survey, and results reveal that CRM does not affect firm performance directly. Rather, the CRM-performance link is fully mediated by differentiation and cost leadership. In addition, CRM's impact on differentiation is greater when industry commoditization is high.
AB - As managers and academics increasingly raise issues about the real value of CRM, the authors question its direct and unconditional performance effect. The study advances research on CRM by investigating the role of critical mechanisms underlying the CRM-performance link. Drawing from the sources→positions→performance framework, the authors build a research model in which two strategic postures of firms-differentiation and cost leadership-mediate the effect of CRM on firm performance. This investigation also contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the differential impact of CRM in diverse industry environments. The study analyzes data from in-depth field interviews and a large-scale, crossindustry survey, and results reveal that CRM does not affect firm performance directly. Rather, the CRM-performance link is fully mediated by differentiation and cost leadership. In addition, CRM's impact on differentiation is greater when industry commoditization is high.
KW - Business strategy
KW - CRM
KW - Customer relationship management
KW - Industry commoditization
KW - Mediation
KW - Structural equation modeling
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U2 - 10.1007/s11747-009-0164-y
DO - 10.1007/s11747-009-0164-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84893967065
SN - 0092-0703
VL - 38
SP - 326
EP - 346
JO - Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
JF - Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
IS - 3
ER -