What motivates professional service firm employees to nurture client dialogues?

Abstract

Dialogues between professionals and their clients are at the core of relationship marketing of professional service firms. To nurture dialogues, professionals need to extend the scope of the dialogue to new issues that impact the client organization's performance. We develop and examine (N = 431) a model grounded in the theory of planned behavior to highlight factors that impact the willingness of professionals to initiate the extension of client dialogues. Three main results are found. First, affective and instrumental attitudes are distinct and different motivational antecedents that simultaneously impact willingness. Second, affective and instrumental attitude are intermediate psychological considerations shaped by extrinsic rewards, reciprocal relationships, and client relationship quality. Third, organizational pressure operates indirectly by instilling a personal professional norm to extend client dialogues.

Keywords:

• professional service firm
• client dialogue
• relationship marketing
• theory of planned behavior

Notes

1 The Big Four audit firms (since 2002) are PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.

2 During the last three years, we have conducted some 50 interviews with employees of the target PSF as well as quarterly conversations with senior staff. Drafts were discussed with both junior and senior staff to arrive at a parsimonious research model that reflected the received literature as well as insights, experiences, and concerns in practice.