Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).

Design/methodology/approach

The research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.

Findings

The findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.

Originality/value

The authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.

中文翻译：

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跨文化、人际关系发展框架

目的

本文的目的是利用身份管理理论的视角探讨企业对企业 (B2B)、跨文化、人际关系的销售人员 - 客户关系如何发展 (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005)。

设计/方法/方法

该研究对 18 种与来自另一种文化的客户的目标关系与企业对企业销售人员进行了定性半结构化访谈。

发现

调查结果表明，如 IMT 中所述，我们的受访者的关系从审判转向了纠缠，有时还转向了重新谈判阶段。在销售人员和客户之间文化多样性较低的情况下，关系达到了试探和纠缠阶段。在销售人员和客户之间存在高度文化多样性的情况下，关系有时会演变为重新谈判阶段。销售人员的文化智力 (CQ) 促进人际关系、跨文化销售人员与客户关系的发展。

原创性/价值

作者将 IMT 从个人关系发展领域转移到 B2B 跨文化、人际关系，解决了在不同背景下理解销售人员-客户人际关系方面的文献空白，并开发了一个理论模型来理解跨文化、人际关系销售人员-客户关系的发展跨越不同层次的文化多样性。