Marielle Audrey Payaud

Business effectiveness and professional service personnel Relational or transactional managers

This empirical study of commercial banking relationships in France demonstrates that, despite the current emphasis on new technology, contact personnel remain important for the success of professional business‐to‐business services. When account managers are changed, the business clients feel that their relationship with the bank is weaker and they judge the bank to be less client oriented. More important for the bank’s future profitability is the finding that changing account managers is negatively associated with the bank’s external effectiveness, as measured by the client’s judgement of satisfaction and service quality, by their purchase intentions and by their willingness to recommend the bank. Also, the business clients who change account managers express a greater likelihood of switching banks. In addition, the study points out the divergence between the transactional sales approach of the bank and the relational perspective of the business client. Commercial banks tend to overestimate both the degree to which they are client oriented and the benefits of technology as a substitute for human interactions with their business clients.

Effectiveness of Relational and Transactional cultures in commercial banking: putting client‐value into the competing values model

This paper has four purposes. First, it points out and explains why the Market‐type culture, is not the culture type most conducive to business performance. This Market‐type culture reflects mainly a Transactional approach to the market rather than a longer term Relational approach to clients. Second, a modification of the CVM is presented which forces the respondents to weigh the value their firm places on the client or customer compared with the other competing values in the model. This modified version can be used to describe organizational cultures which are more Relational or Transactional in nature. Third, an empirical study of commercial banking relationships in France indicated that business effectiveness was greater when both parties in the exchange (account manager and business client) perceived their respective organizations to be Relational‐type cultures. Conversely, the worst business performance was found when both organizations had Transactional‐type cultures. Fourth, the managerial implications of the paper are discussed in the context of commercial banking.

L'insuffisance de l'histoire dans la recherche francophone en management stratégique

S’il est evident que l’histoire des entreprises et de la gestion s’est developpee dans les publications francophones de management strategique, un doute s’exprime sur sa penetration dans le courant dominant de la recherche. Cet article se livre a une investigation archeologique sur les 20 dernieres annees et en tire des implications epistemiques pour le champ du management strategique et sa regeneration.