As the business environment takes on a global perspective for many business-to- business organisations, so the area of Global Account Management (GAM) has become an increasingly important issue for both researchers and practitioners. This study is focused on providing an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of the roles of global account managers in managing relationships with global customers. This aspect of global account management has received little attention in the literature with little empirical research in the area. From the extant literature on global account management, global account manager roles and relationships in business-to-business markets, a conceptual framework of the global account manager role was constructed. This was supported by role theory, boundary role theory, and theory on the buyer-seller interface. The research was conducted within the realism philosophical paradigm, using a qualitative case study approach with four co-operative case organisations. The research design was also grounded in boundary role theory, with data being collected from the global account managers, their managers, customers and their internal team members in order to provide a rich picture of the role. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data and the interviews were analysed against the conceptual framework using a qualitative data analysis package, QSR NVivo. Within-case analyses were carried out followed by a cross-case analysis. This resulted in the presentation of a set of validated role constructs, and a theoretical model of the global account manager role. As well as the main findings from the empirical study, the research also produced some additional findings. The research makes a contribution to theory in two main areas: firstly to our theoretical understanding of global account management roles; and secondly, in extending and supporting existing theory on account management. Given the nature of the research topic, there were also implications for practitioners. Finally the limitations of the research and opportunities for further work were explored.

近年來因為資訊科技的普及，及時的資訊流加速了各產業於全球的競爭狀況；此外，將產品外包給其他廠商生產，也逐漸成為下游廠商的主要營運模式，在這樣的背景下，增加了組織間關係的複雜性，也使得很多的廠商的國際顧客要求其設立專案團隊，以提供更好以及更一致的產品及服務。此時，國際關鍵客戶管理(Global account management; GAM)一詞因此產生，其在發展的過程中得到大量學者的關注(Birkinshaw et al. 2001; Arnold et al. 2001; Yip and Bink 2007; Shi et al.2010)，國際關鍵客戶管理概念為供應商專注於整合組織內部跨部門的活動，並提供特殊的溝通協調機制。此外，資訊科技在商業活動上的應用抑是近年來學術界的研究重點，然而資訊科技與國際關鍵客戶管理存在著許多尚未被發掘的關聯性，舉例而言，Yip與Bink(2007)指出，國際關鍵客戶的架構將可使跨國企業增加資訊流通的能力，這項能力正是資訊科技的主要功用之一，儘管如此，資訊科技對國際關鍵客戶管理過程的影響卻鮮少被研究，此學術領域的鴻溝尚須大量的實證研究去填滿。因此，本研究將以資源基礎理論為立論依據，建立一概念性架構，以闡明資訊科技與國際關鍵客戶管理間的關係，再以實證研究的方式提出幾項主張。 本研究是以供應商的角度切入，探討以下三者的關係，包括供應商的資訊能力(supplier IT capabilities)、與國際關鍵客戶間的關係、以及供應商的公司績效。研究結果顯示，第一，資訊科技之基礎設備(IT infrastructure)並不足以有效地產生持續性競爭優勢，但若加上資訊科技之人力資源(human IT resources)，兩者相輔相成的情況下，隨著時間的發展，將使得此兩項資源能夠被嵌入各組織特定的商業流程以及組織文化。因此，這樣的資訊科技資源，是有價值、稀少且難以模仿的。第二，資訊科技必需用於改變較高層級的商業活動，才足以促進整個組織的績效。因為關鍵客戶在一組織之客戶結構中，佔有很有要的地位，因此資訊科技若用於改變國際關鍵客戶間的互動模式，將可以為供應商創造競爭優勢。我們發現供應商的資訊能力藉由增加以下國際關鍵客戶管理能力：(1)組織間及組織內的溝通協調(inter-organizationally and intra-organizationally coordination)能力，(2)資訊取得(information acquisition)能力，以及(3)調整活動(reconfiguration)能力，將可以提供國際關鍵客戶更好的服務。第三，我們發現當不同國籍的國際關鍵客戶間，若有著差異很大的Hofstede(1980)文化構面指數 (cultural dimensions indexes)，這些客戶對於資訊科技的態度將有所不同，也就是說，國家文化將干擾資訊能力 與國際關鍵客戶管理能力間的關係。 / Due to the proliferation of information technology (IT), real time information flow accelerates and enables the global integration and connections between companies. In addition, outsourcing has been a mega trend which drives companies trying to develop successful international relationships with their suppliers or customers. Accordingly, many companies are increasingly facing pressures from their global customers to develop better or consistent programs to serve their customers on a global basis. Global account management (GAM), which refers to the feature that dedicated cross-functional teams, specialized coordinating activities for specific accounts, and formalized structures and processes , has gained increasing attention in the extant literature. (Arnold 2001; Birkinshaw 2001; Bink 2007; Shi et al. 2010). The emergence of IT also has potential to shape the development of GAM processes. For example, Yip and Bink(2007) indicated that GAM structures allow the multinational companies to increase their information processing capacities which could be leveraged by advanced IT systems. However, despite the potential impact of IT on GAM processes, only limited work offers empirical evidence on this issue. Drawing from resource based view (RBV) (Barney 1991), this dissertation develops a conceptual framework which links the relationships between IT and GAM. In addition, using in-depth interviews with account managers in Taiwanese electronics suppliers, this dissertation develops couple of proposition in the linkages between IT, GAM and supplier performance. The results can be concluded in the following statement. First, we found that IT infrastructure is not sufficient to exploit sustained competitive advantage, but plus human IT resources, are embedded in each organizational business operating process and organizational culture over time which are deemed to be valuable, rare, and hard to imitate. IT capabilities can only enhance supplier performance when it is used effectively to leverage higher order organizational processes such as GAM capabilities and processes. This is consistent with the logical arguments of RBV. Second, supplier IT resources shape its IT capabilities; derived from this IT capabilities, they are able to provide better service to their global account by the enhancement of global account management capabilities in (1) coordination inter-organizationally or intra-organizationally, (2) information acquisition, and (3) reconfiguration. Third, the results also indicates that global accounts from the country with distinct score of Hofstede(1980)’s cultural dimensions indexes, will have a disparity impact of IT capabilities on GAM capabilities. In other words, cultural and country level factors can moderate IT capabilities on GAM capabilities.