Key Account Management: Adding Elements of Account Fit to an Integrative Theoretical Framework

A growing scholarly interest in key account management highlights the need for a framework to use in the study of these accounts. This study combines theory from relationship marketing, personal selling, and organizational-level resource allocation studies to build an integrative theoretical framework explaining both relational and performance aspects of key accounts. In building this integrative model, a qualitative study of key account managers revealed that “fit” between the buying and selling company is of great importance. This concept of fit, which has largely been ignored in key account studies, is added as both an antecedent and a moderator in the integrative model.