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Crisis communication in key account relationships

Satu Nätti, Suvi Rahkolin and Saila Saraniemi Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Abstract

Purpose – A deliberate and planned crisis communication strategy is an important part of key account management. The purpose of this paper is to draw links between key account managers (KAM) and crisis communication and explore the elements critical to crisis communication in key account relationships. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is qualitative. Data were gathered from people experienced in crisis communication and responsible for strategic accounts. The paper analysed managers’ stories of crisis processes and related communication in relationships. Findings – Successful crisis communication requires an open and active crisis communicator, one willing to solve problems, and also the company being a partner worth trusting and the retention of the relationship being worthwhile for the customer. Research limitations/implications – The present study focuses on the managerial view, and therefore a dyadic approach is suggested for future studies. Practical implications – The role of the KAM as a crisis communicator and primary identifier of the crisis is emphasized. Originality/value – Existing crisis communication discussions have been very media focused. This study focuses on the key account relationship and the related crisis communication. In addition, although earlier studies examine the influences of crises on business relationships (e.g. Salo et al., 2009; Thiessen and Ingenhoff, 2010; Tähtinen and Vaaland, 2006), research on crisis communication in business-to-business key account relationships is still scarce. The results will help to understand the characteristics of crisis communication in key account relationships and enhance communication with strategic accounts.

Keywords Crisis communication, Key account management, Strategic account

Paper type Research paper

Introduction A crisis is an unexpected, negative and serious instance or a process that threatens the physical and/or immaterial value of an organization. If a company is perceived to be responsible for the crisis, its reputation might be damaged and/or customer views of the company in question might change radically. Efficient crisis communication can compensate for negative feelings towards the company and decrease the number of undesirable messages in the network (Coombs et al., 2010, p. 338).

The literature on crisis communication offers numerous viewpoints, for example image restoration strategies (e.g. Benoit, 1995), and situational crisis communication theory that defines a variety of crisis types based on attributed crisis responsibility eliciting different types of suitable response (e.g. Coombs, 2007). However, research on crisis communication to date has largely relied on a relatively small number of well- known incidents connected to communicative, controllable, media-related actions taken by companies (see Carrol, 2009, pp. 64-67; Eriksson and Eriksson, 2010, pp. 203-204; Veil and Husted, 2012) although, for example Coombs (2007) states that perhaps the biggest threat of all is the breakdown of customer relationships. This is pronounced in business-to-business (B2B) relationships because losing a long-term strategic customer relationship is often a major blow for a company, causing it to lose all the investments made in the relationship in the past too (e.g. Ford et al., 2003). The high level of

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Received 10 August 2012 Revised 4 February 2013 9 August 2013 9 September 2013 15 December 2013 Accepted 6 January 2014

Corporate Communications: An International Journal Vol. 19 No. 3, 2014 pp. 234-246 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1356-3289 DOI 10.1108/CCIJ-08-2012-0056

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interdependence and cooperation characteristic of strategic customer relationships potentially means a high level of conflicts too, and accordingly conflict management is an important part of relationship-related studies (e.g. Holmlund-Rytkönen and Strandvik, 2005). Thus, there is a well-argued need to find a link between strategic customer relationships and crisis communication, because while communication in general gets faster and easier, maintaining those relationships in crisis situations calls for quick reactions. In addition, there are many contingencies to consider in communicating with strategic accounts: level of reciprocity and responsibility in the relationship, likewise a need to provide open and accurate information to partners to nurture the relationship (Waters, 2013).

Key account management systems are designed to manage strategic accounts consciously and intensively (Nätti and Palo, 2012) and to increase the value of the relationships (Pardo et al., 2005). KAM systems provide a structured way to maintain and develop strategic customer relationships. In addition to specifying a key account manager (KAM) (the person responsible for specific relationships and the primary contact for the partner), the system may hold details of a key account team and other relevant actors from the seller organization that combine to form an effective interface with the partner (Rehme, 2001). KAM systems are more complex and coordinated in their buyer-seller interactions than routine selling controls (Wotruba and Castleberry, 1993), creating added value in customer relationships (Pardo et al., 2005). A KAM system may be used in a relationship with a strategic partner because the relationship merits the investment of material and human resources, and can spur many development activities that benefit the long-term functionality of the cooperative relationship (Pardo et al., 2005).

In this paper we aim to comprehensively describe and define meaningful elements of crisis communication in key account relationships from a KAM’s perspective. There is only limited research on crisis communication in the context of key account management (e.g. Guesalaga and Johnston, 2010), and that gap is the motivation for this study. KAM can hold an important boundary spanner role in a customer relationship which motivates us to further focus on KAMs role especially.

We first focus on discussions of strategic B2B customer relationships and then proceed to examine key account management itself. The empirical part of the study further highlights the phenomenon.

Crisis communication and B2B key account relationships Changes in technology, networked business environments and the related cultural changes to business practices have created a tendency for B2B firms to rely on forging closer relationships with fewer suppliers (Cannon and Perreault, 1999). Despite that shift, there is no uniform picture of B2B relationships. Those can be everything from basic buying and selling to highly collaborative and mutually adaptive relationships like key account relationships that typically involve a high level of information exchange, mutual adaptations, dependency, reciprocity and trust (Cannon and Perreault, 1999, p. 450). The elements of every unique relationship vary: the life cycle of the relationship, the level of information exchange, investments and operational adaptations needed, to mention but a few. In addition, there are “softer” issues to look at: the level of commitment, trust, mutuality, distance and/or dependence between organizations (e.g. Ford et al., 2003, p. 76). Consequently, organizational stance towards the partner, and willingness to either insisting on one’s own stance or accommodate to other’s, is based on these relationship-specific factors and also other contingency

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factors outside the relationship: the size and culture of the organization, dominant coalition, urgency of the situation and potential threat and cost, just to mention few (Pang et al., 2006). Characteristics of key individuals involved (like KAM or CEO of the company) may be critical, starting from leaders being either task or relationship oriented (Waters, 2013).

In spite of these various influential contingency factors, strategic customer relationships call for a certain level of confidence in the relationship. Those relationships tend to be more resistant to adversity owing to higher levels of trust, mutuality and commitment (Salo et al., 2009), which act to mitigate crisis situations. On the other hand, such a high level of interdependence potentially means more conflicts (e.g. Vaaland and Håkansson, 2003). Those conflicts can be functional, causing development in the relationship, and when resolved in an atmosphere of mutual trust, can even strengthen the relationship (Vaaland and Håkansson, 2003). Conflicts can also be a dysfunctional, divisive force, and after such a crisis relationships should be repaired when there is strategic value in maintaining them, or when the cost of losing the partner is too high (Salo et al., 2009).

There are many noteworthy viewpoints on crisis communication in strategic relationships. First, its practices and representations are linked to many elements or the relationship in question. For example, recognizing problems and even crises in the relationship is often easy, but seeing the underlying causes or recognizing problems in both organizations is far more difficult (see, e.g. Tähtinen and Vaaland, 2006). Second, effective communication is at the core of every strategic relationship (Cannon and Perreault, 1999), being a prerequisite for common learning processes (Doz and Hamel, 1998) and trust creation (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). For example, Jehn (1997) found that the more communication there is between individuals during the conflict, the less the conflict affects normal activities. Third, in complex and multi-layered relationships, it is important to recognize who is communicating with whom (e.g. Lucero et al., 2009); In addition to what is the issue, people seem to be concerned with whom is managing the process (Hwang and Cameron, 2009). Direct communication with the customer is crucial, preventing reports in the media precipitating the ending of the relationship (Salo et al., 2009). Thus, in crisis communication a KAM can hold a nodal position.

Furthermore, it is important that both parties demonstrate their willingness to save the relationship (Tähtinen and Vaaland, 2006). In addition to sharing a common desire and making related investments in corrective actions, understanding the other party’s business, goals and challenges influence the success of recovery efforts (e.g. Doz and Hamel, 1998) and effective communication plays a salient role in that.

The literature on crisis communication cites many issues that KAM systems may be applied to, such as recognizing and responding to a customer’s concerns (Carrol, 2009); guaranteeing customers’ ability to conduct their business activities unhindered (Lucero et al., 2009); swift and honest communication (White, 2009); and maintaining trust and recovering it should it be lost (Fombrun and Rindova, 2000). With the help of the system, a firm can maintain intensive communication with the customer (see, e.g. Nätti et al., 2006), and isolate potential seeds of crisis in the relationship.

In relation to crisis communication, key account relationships are an important subset of interorganizational relationships. Research around crisis communication has to date been largely media focused, while the relationship literature has focused more on other relational aspects, resulting in a lack of detailed analysis of the crisis communication. In the context of KAM, such an understanding is certainly needed

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to grasp the meaning and function of a system and of the people involved in a crisis situation (Guenzi et al., 2007), likewise influential situational factors. In this study, we aim to comprehensively define those elements that are meaningful in crisis communication; especially in key account relationships and from a KAMs viewpoint. We intend to answer the following questions:

. How do KAMs explain the nature of crises in key account relationships?

. How do KAMs explain the elements of successful crisis communication in KA relationships?

. How do KAMs see different organizational roles manifesting themselves in crisis communication?

Methodology This study examines stories of personal experiences by individual (KAMs). Following Rappaport (1995) we define stories and narratives as descriptions of events over time. The current research also focuses on characters or roles in the individual story (see Martin et al., 1983) for identifying the nuances of communication in key account relationships and related influential factors.

Using narrative data is apt for the following reasons: the method offers informants the freedom to pass on narratives (Makkonen et al., 2012) and narratives allow interviewees to express their own view of reality (Polkinghorne, 2007) increasing the validity of the retrospective data (Miller et al., 1997). Furthermore, the method offers access to an often neglected but vital perspective in crisis communication literature, that of the KAMs. However, these stories provide an individual’s subjective perception of the crises in key account relationships (see Elliot, 2005) and other parties involved might have disputed the version of events had they been consulted (cf. Pentland, 1999).

The data comprises of an expert-sample, where the informants were chosen based on their considerable experience of KAM. We were especially interested in the informant’s experiences in crisis situations, rather than with a particular organization. Each informant had coordinated international customer relationships that had exposed them to crisis situations, and where crisis communication had played a critical role in recovering the relationship. We selected managers representing various fields of business (IT-technology, healthcare, services and electronic production) to advance our aim of logging managerial experiences of crisis situations. Given the contextual nature of the studied phenomenon and acknowledging that context is an essential component influencing the narratives produced (Spector-Mersel, 2010), the variety of fields the informants worked in and their different career stages enriched the data.

Four Finnish informants were interviewed in the autumn of 2011 and those interviews generated five stories. During the interviews, we explicitly requested narratives from the informants relating to crisis situations that had arisen during their careers (see Czarniawska, 2007). We also asked certain questions to confirm that the narratives were eliciting themes concerning the informant’s understanding of the concept of crisis, their views of the nature of crisis and what happened during the process.

First, the transcripts were read through carefully with the main focus on the events and characters related to the crisis situation in question. That generated the emergent codes for the analysis. Then we compared the representative data extracts for

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categorizing events and characters to reveal potential themes and form the initial thematic map (see Braun and Clarke, 2006). The main themes were then identified as the nature of crisis, elements of crisis communication and organizational roles in crisis communication. Finally, the themes were reorganized as subthemes. These themes supported by quotations were then refined in the process of data analysis and reporting until they assumed their final form (see Braun and Clarke, 2006; Mäläskä et al., 2011).

To summarize, we primarily extracted the content of the story from the narratives to analyse (Polkinghorne, 2007), and did not focus on the structure of the narratives (Elliot, 2005). Thus, when classifying the extracts from the narratives and placing them into conceptual categories, our analysis resembled thematic coding (see Elliot, 2005). We were interested in what was related in the narratives, not how it was related (see Freeman, 2003). Thus, our approach can be defined as a qualitative enquiry with narrative data rather than a narrative analysis (see Georgakopoulou, 2006).

Stories of crises in key account relationships In crisis situation, “the voice of outside stakeholders” (cf. Waters, 2013) is often a KAM. Our findings reveal several relationship-specific and other contingency factors outside the relationship explaining the vital perspective of KAM in crisis communication (Figure 1). These contextual factors are divided to nature of crisis, elements of crisis communication and different organizational roles in crisis communication. In the following, each of these factors are described in details.

How do KAMs explain the nature of crises in key account relationships? As Salo et al. (2009) suggest, efforts at relationship recovery cannot start until the underlying problem is concrete and recognized by both parties. This is discernible in the stories analysed in this study: the seeds of crisis could already be sown, but a profound understanding of the situation does not necessarily emerge until its

ACCOUNTCOMPANY

External contextual elements

Lack of commitment on the part of management

Doubts about untrust-

worthiness

Trust and commitment

Identifying crisis and understanding the nature of it

Fast responses

Honesty

Noticing customer’s concerns

Tailoring communica- tion to the needs of a customer

Status of the communicator

Presence and taking

responsibility for

communication

Openness, activeness

and willingness to

solve problems

Conflicting interpretation of contracts

Nature of crises

Elements of crisis communication:

Importance of key account

manager

Changes in social

connections

Figure 1. Crisis communication in the key account relationship from a perspective of the KAM

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consequences are clearly visible. This is challenging for those managing communication, for they must assess when to initiate communication efforts and how harmful the inevitable, but perhaps not overt, dissatisfaction could be to their network:

Suddenly the nature of the relationship changed so that it was difficult to arrange visits there [y] We understood well that something was wrong when we didn’t receive reports of activities as agreed (Interviewee A).

Doubts about trustworthiness. The basis for most of the crises seemed to be suspicions of untrustworthy behaviour. The failure to meet conditions agreed upon was the central issue in three of the five stories. However, the accounts reveal it is not so much about failing to do something, but lack of communication in the crisis situation. Consequently, the customer sees only negligence rather than a viable reason for the issue, which makes it easy to doubt the trustworthiness of the partner. Behaviour that might cast doubt on trustworthiness would, for example include failure to submit scheduled reports or avoiding contact:

When reports on the progress should have come, there was nothing. Uncertainty started to evolve about whether they had done what was agreed [y] First he did not answer the phone [y] Then I had to say that we’d reached the limit (Interviewee A).

Conflicting interpretations of contracts. Insufficient communication during the contract formulation stage can also have long-lasting consequences for relationships. Interviewee D relates how one crisis was provoked by in conflicting interpretations of contracts. Vague disagreements had been noted before the crisis, but there was no awareness of their potential consequences at that stage. The dominant position of a big customer can also worsen the situation:

A big company from the USA is a great chance for a small Finnish firm – the contracts were a bit vague and open to interpretation. We had been able to sell the system abroad once and we were just happy to maintain the contracts (Interviewee D).

Lack of commitment on the part of management. Lack of commitment from management is one notable cause of an issue escalating to become a crisis. Interviewee D provided an example where an IT company tried to internationalize by undertaking projects with a big US company, but without the full support of its senior management. The special feature of this story is the relationship between a small and a large company; and the concurrent differences in business culture. The IT system was well integrated into the customer’s organization, and thus of strategic importance for the customer, but problems arose when it did not function as expected. The crisis developed around the interpretation of contractual terms, when the customer suspected a breach of contract and brought in an army of lawyers.

It seemed the supplier company management did not even notice the crisis growing, and only the KAM appeared to care:

For the customer, it appeared as though there was no commitment in the management for this. If we are not able to get our managers to meetings with the customer, how important is this customer relationship in the end? (Interviewee D).

With regard to the issue of lack of commitment, interviewee C also brought up the important notion of handling customer complaints. Doing so offers an opportunity to diagnose potential crises before they erupt:

If customer complaints are not taken care of they become crisis hot spots. Thus, dealing with recalls is critical (Interviewee C).

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Changes in social connections. Interviewee C told of a customer relationship where the guiding principle was to follow pre-agreed rules. These rules were subject to change as contact people changed, and this could make the relationship complicated. Social connections and bonds between the companies are important and changes to them heighten the need for effective communication:

We should be sensitive when people and organizations change [y] In that [change] communication acquires its meaning (Interviewee C).

External contextual elements. A new market environment, different context and technological problems are elements external to the relationship and accordingly may cause problems and even give rise to a crisis if the real source of the problem is not recognized. For example, in one story from an IT business, the functionality of the product was questioned and consequently cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the supplier. The story culminated with the partners blaming each other for the failure of the system to function in different environments, although it was actually nobody’s fault:

I noticed that there was a gloomy atmosphere. We pointed the finger at the customer, that they did not understand a thing, or could not use [our system] (Interviewee A).

How do KAMs explain the elements of successful crisis communication in KA relationships? Presence and taking responsibility for communication. Crises can also highlight the real nature of the relationship, as commitment and trust are tested in every crisis. For example, a lack of responsibility and conflicting views about contracts may demand active communication from appropriate messengers. An active presence and the KAMs willingness to solve the problem seem to be key to salvaging the relationship, as is positive interaction at different levels of the organization:

Being there and discussing things with people from different levels of the company helped a lot. If I tried to solve things from here, it would have been more than a catastrophe (Interviewee D).

Openness, activeness and willingness to solve problems generate trust. A willingness to resolve the crisis from the outset will assist its resolution. The active pursuit of a solution will revitalize the customer’s perception of trust and belief in their partner’s commitment. Overcoming the crisis involves recognizing the reason for it and discreetly pointing it out to the customer.

Crisis communication in strategic customer relationships requires openness, activeness and willingness to find a solution. In addition to transparency in activities, openness refers to admitting problems and communicating them openly. The customer is then aware of how things are and what will be done to correct the situation. Activeness is not only about solving the crisis and listening to the concerns of the customer, but also about honesty, tailored communications and fast responses and maintaining an active presence. Most of all, the customer has to feel important. The willingness to find a solution is visible in crisis communication when activeness and openness are present. Interviewee D illustrated the meaning of activeness:

A lot was corrected by being there and seeing the problem with them – I could create a relationship with them there. We acted together and in that way trust was there – they saw that we were trying (Interviewee D).

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Trust was seen as the basis of commitment. Interviewees regarded problems and crises as an inevitable constituent of developing mutual trust: without experience of resolving problems and crises together, the necessary trust would not develop. Interviewee A effectively illustrated how trust can also evolve during the crisis as long as the willingness to solve problems is made clear:

Typically, crises in strategic account relationships are resolved. The openness and open discussion, and that we admit the problems – that creates the trust. If the company is willing to work things out, it means it’s trustworthy (Interviewee A).

Each interviewee agreed that strategic account relationships would not be jeopardized by minor setbacks, and in most cases the problems are solved (see also Tähtinen and Vaaland, 2006). The activity of resolving crises offers an opportunity to bolster an account relationship and trust may even be strengthened. Crises can be regarded as an inevitable part of the evolution of a relationship.

How do KAMs see different organizational roles manifesting themselves in crisis communication? The status of the communicator. In addition to communicating and interacting proactively, the contact people, the communicator and their status are significant. If the senior management of the supplier company is not involved in crisis resolution, customers may feel that their opinions are not being adequately taken into account. Listening to customer concerns and understanding the situation includes an ability to know when senior management should react:

In that sense it went wrong – that our management never responded, and they got the vice president there for whom our company was only one small actor from far away [y] They lost their belief that this could mean something to us (Interviewee D).

The involvement of the company’s senior management in discussions represents one important aspect of taking care of the customer, alongside admitting that the problem exists and is serious, as interviewee C said. The CEO brings an atmosphere of seriousness to the handling of the problem. As already mentioned, maintaining trust requires a presence.

On the other hand, if the problem is minor, it is not always necessary to involve senior management, which might only exacerbate the issue. However, roles and responsibilities have to be clear; both parties must know who is communicating with whom. In a crisis situation everyone has their own role but this seems to go unnoticed in many companies. Communication has to be coherent and integrated:

He was responsible for communication right from the beginning – someone has to take care of it, not everybody can be involved (Interviewee B).

The importance of the KAM. Preparation for crises is often inadequate and there seems to be a notable lack of management involvement. The unpleasant nature of crises makes managers reluctant to put in place any contingency plans. In those cases, crisis communication is more about firefighting than about utilizing planned communication to resolve the situation.

Managers may assume that communication with the customer is direct, meaning that crisis management or a planned approach to crisis situation handling are ignored. However, anticipating problems can help to maintain trust and expedite management

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involvement when it is essential. The KAM may then have a meaningful role in getting other managers involved:

They tried to take care of it from the office, so they [senior management] could avoid the direct customer contact. I tried to say many times that, “Okay, now it is time to go! I can come with you, if you cannot do it alone” (Interviewee A).

Lack of planning highlights the activity of the KAMs in the crisis situation and how sensitive to the situation they must be. In addition, KAMs have a notable role as crisis communicators because as the customer’s contact person they should have the strongest bonds with the customer, and are therefore often expected to work alongside the customer to resolve the crisis.

Conclusions This study makes several theoretical contributions to discussions on key account management and crisis communication. First, the literature has so far neglected crisis communication in relation to key account management. The results of this study show that crisis communication is an essential element in the retention of strategic customer relationships. The vital role of KAM in crisis communication is manifested by several relationship and other contingency factors (see Pang et al., 2006; Waters, 2013) described in this study. Second, our study identifies common features shared by crisis communication and key account management. Key account relationships are usually tight, emphasize cooperation and are based on mutual trust and commitment. In addition, open communication, resolving functional conflicts and mutual dependence are typical (Ming-Huei and Wen-Chiung, 2011). These features are in line with principles of crisis communication where tight, individualized communication (Carrol, 2009) and openness (Lucero et al., 2009) are intended to safeguard trust and commitment in the relationship (Coombs and Holladay, 2002). We suggest that crisis communication (and its planning) are important tasks in KAM, and should be strongly supported by the management of the company (see also VanSlyke Turk et al., 2012). In fact, the general importance of senior management involvement with KAM is well recognized in earlier literature on the subject (Guesalaga and Johnston, 2010).

Third, crisis communication research has focused on media-related and controllable actions of the company (see, e.g. Carrol, 2009; Coombs, 2007; Eriksson and Eriksson, 2010; Thiessen and Ingenhoff, 2011). This study contributes to crisis communication theory by examining the communication from a key account management perspective and establishing the importance of communication and interaction in customer relationships, and especially in crisis situations. This is in line with Salo et al. (2009) who found that direct communication with the customer is crucial to restoring a relationship. Indeed, crisis communication in customer relationships is a two-way, dynamic activity involving mutual communication between a company and a strategic account. Although crisis communication literature has proved similar forms of crisis response strategies (e.g. Huang and Su, 2009), it often has taken the perspective of public-relations.

Fourth, this study highlights the varying nature of crises and provides clues to their early recognition. Thus, the findings increase our knowledge of crisis communication theory that has traditionally focused primarily on how a crisis should be handled.

Fifth, this study highlights the role of the KAM. The existing literature has not positioned the KAM as the person most likely to recognize the crisis and primary crisis communicator. Our study establishes that the KAM (or equivalent person) has an enormous input into crisis communication and the result of the crisis.

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Finally, our data supports the findings of Salo et al. (2009) by showing that crises can develop and enhance strategic accounts, while shared experience of resolving crises through successful joint problem solving will make both parties more willing to maintain the relationship in the future.

Managerial recommendations Crisis communication in customer relationships should not mix with crisis communication with the media. In customer relationships, crisis communication is clearly targeted at a certain account affected by the crisis, rather than at all stakeholders simultaneously. At the customer relationship level, demonstrating responsibility is the basis of crisis communication, and communication is more personal and situational. Crisis communication in strategic accounts requires the sensitivity to hear the customer’s needs and utilizes the existing level of trust to find solutions jointly. From the perspective of strategic accounts, the most important goal of crisis communications must be the retention of trust.

Limitations and future research Data derived from stories inevitably reflects the narrator’s social reality and cannot therefore be exhaustive. We have to accept that the narrators may have been affected by their understanding of the purpose of the study and the interpersonal interaction during the interview (Spector-Mersel, 2010). Apparently, our aim was not to construct an organizational or cultural narrative (Martin et al., 1983; Rappaport, 1995) or a macro narrative (Elliot, 2005) of the phenomenon. Neither were we interested in organizations’ narratives on a crisis devised for the benefit of their stakeholders (cf. Yang et al., 2010). However, the four informants and five stories of crises provide a somewhat limited (albeit, we suggest, an adequately rich) perspective on the phenomenon. Further enquiries with more extensive data may be needed in the future. Furthermore, the understanding of crisis communication in an international context is relatively undeveloped. Paying attention to cultural differences in crisis communication would help managers to understand how other cultures see crisis situations and communication, for example. Finally, if we consider crisis communication as a two-way and multifaceted issue, it would be interesting to collect dyadic data to complement and verify the current research.

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About the authors

Satu Nätti, DSc (Econ. and Bus. Adm.) is an Associate Professor in Marketing at the Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland. Her main research interests relate to professional services, customer-related knowledge management, innovation net management and developing customer relationships in B-to-B context. She has published, among others, in Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Services Marketing and Service Industries Journal.

Suvi Rahkolin, MSc (Econ. and Bus. Adm.) is a Researcher at the Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland. Her main research interest relate to key account management systems and crisis management.

Dr Saila Saraniemi, DSc (Econ. and Bus. Adm.) is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland. Her main research interests relate corporate, service, as well as place branding. She is also interested in value co-creating practices of service business, especially in B-to-B relationships. She has been published, among others, in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Education, Journal of Brand Management and Journal of Travel Research. Dr Saila Saraniemi is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

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