What are the determinants of success for a supplier in managing a global account relationship? Despite an increasing number of established global account relationships in international marketing practice, the answer to this basic question seems to elude both practice and theory. Existing research, academic as well as practitioner-oriented, has not extended much beyond checklists of success factors and “how we did it” stories.; The research for this thesis attempts to provide an answer to this question. The objective is theory generation through grounded theory, and the method is qualitative, case study-based, and focused on a holistic understanding of the global account relationship. The methodology used is iterative, going back and forth between academic literatures and field interviews with managers and executives.; This thesis is organized as follows: first it introduces the research question and provides managerial and academic justification for it, then explores relevant existing literatures, presents a research design for a qualitative exploratory study with the aim of generating theory on the determinants of success of global account relationships, and reports the data and findings of the study. The thesis ends with a discussion of the limitations of this study, future research directions, and the implications of the findings for relationship management theory and practice.; The main findings are that the scope of collaboration between the supplier and the buyer characterizes different types of global account relationships, that trust is the key determinant of the success levels in relationships and has multiple dimensions, and that the dimensions of trust required for success vary according to the type of relationship. Finally, antecedents of the different dimensions of trust are also examined.
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