Omar Toulan

Can Selling Be Globalized? The Pitfalls of Global Account Management

There is a strong current trend towards globalization of the sales function, driven by increasing customer power, initiatives in customer relationship management, and the design of customer-centric organizations. This article questions the wisdom of rapid adoption of global account management by vendor companies. Drawing on field and survey research among global account managers, the authors highlight a number of ways in which vendors can fail to reap the benefits of global customer relationships and instead suffer falling prices. A number of managerial guidelines are suggested for a strategic approach toward global customer management and an effective implementation of global account management programs.

Beneath the Surface: The Impact of Radical Economic Reforms on the Outward Orientation of Argentine and Mendozan Firms, 1989–1995

The main argument of this article is that in order to assess accurately the impact of a market liberalisation programme such as the one Argentina has undergone, one must look beneath the aggregate statistics and analyse underlying changes in critical market structure and organisational variables. While aggregate trade figures imply that the country has been successful at reintegrating itself into the world economy, two underlying trends reveal potential threats to the countrys long-term development. These trends relate to the level of value added being created in the country, particularly with regard to its exports, and to changes in the composition of its trading partners. Despite four decades of relative decline, Argentina is still the third largest economy in Latin America and ranks at the top of the region in terms of per capita income and most standard indicators of social development. Furthermore, since I990 it has been the second largest destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region after Mexico.1 In spite of the impact of the recent economic reforms, however, Argentina still has one of the largest government sectors, highest average trade tariffs, and least outward-oriented economies in the region.2 And while Argentina was home to some of the first multinationals in any developing country,3 Brazil and Mexico currently have more firms both in Latin Americas Top 500 ranking and on the United Nations list of the largest multinationals headquartered outside the Triad (USA, Japan, European Union) economies.4 The purpose of this article is to assess the differential

The Role of Interorganizational Fit in Global Account Management

In this paper, we apply the concept of interorganizational fit to the use of global account management programs in multinational corporations. It is predicted that greater fit between vendor and customer on a variety of strategic as well as structural aspects will result in higher performance of the relationship. This is contrasted with a bargaining perspective approach to managing customer relationships. Support for the hypotheses is found using a survey of 106 global account managers in 16 multinational corporations.

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF MARKET LIBERALIZATION ON EXPORT BEHAVIOR: The Case of Argentina

This article addresses the role distortive macroeconomic policy tools play in affecting export behavior, and explores the impact of their removal as a result of market liberalization. A model is developed which incorporates the effect of export taxes, import tariffs, and export subsidies among other factors on industry exports. The hypotheses derived from the model are then tested using Argentine industry-level trade data for 1990 and 1995, between which the government undertook a dramatic liberalization program. Among the conclusions derived are the positive impact on exports of reductions in not only export but also import taxes.

A resource perspective on internationalization responses to market liberalization

Abstract This paper explores the impact of market liberalization on the value of firm resources, using the case of Argentina. It is argued that these policies change the environment such that firms are forced to adapt their organizational domain, in specific by broadening it to include international customers. A model is then developed and tested to explain which resources should gain vs. lose value as one moves from selling just domestically to selling internationally.

The Antecedents and Consequences of Emerging Market Divestitures

Divesting assets owned in emerging markets has substantive consequences for the multinational corporation. In this paper, we examine two dimensions surrounding the decision to divest a business in an emerging market: institutional effects impacting the timing of the divestiture, and the effects of the ownership structure on the stability of the venture. Also, we explore the consequences of divestment on the sale price of the assets. We use a proprietary database of all acquisitions in Argentina (> US

Global Account Management in Multinational Corporations: Theory and Evidence

1 million) for the period 1990-2002 to test our hypotheses.Our evidence supports the existence of institutional and ownership effects on the propensity to divest, which in turn affect the divestiture price.