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Executive Summary
Services marketing literature frequently emphasizes the relevance of relationships for the success of service providers. Sichtmann and von Selasinky add to existing knowledge by developing and empirically testing a framework of cross-border customer relationships (CCRs) and their antecedent factors as drivers of the export performance of business-to-business services. They test the framework on a sample of 142 business-to-business service providers. The results show that valuable CCRs have a positive impact on the export performance of services. However, the authors find no influence from the number of CCRs in the export market. Consequently, they conclude that it is more useful for service providers to strengthen their CCRs than to broaden their cross-border customer base.

The results also indicate a positive link between relationship marketing activities (RMAs) and the cross-cultural skills of service employees and between RMAs and the development of valuable and numerous CCRs. Therefore, the authors advise managers to advance RMAs to establish, develop, and maintain valuable CCRs, which can lead to superior export performance. Furthermore, the authors find an interaction effect of RMAs and cross-cultural skills of service employees on greater value and number of CCRs, indicating that managers should try to deploy service employees with strong cultural skills in the export market. Moreover, the findings advance a theoretical understanding of the antecedents of RMA, which helps clarify the pivotal role of customer orientation in explaining the RMA of firms that export their services. Consequently, RMAs require a change from a product- or process-focused culture to a customer-oriented culture. Export commitment and managers’ cross-cultural skills also have positive influences on RMA. Because of the relevance of export commitment and the cross-cultural skills of managers for RMA, service providers should deploy managers who are committed to the export venture and understand the culture of the foreign market, including appropriate language skills, to encourage RMAs as a means to influence export performance positively.

Biography
Christina Sichtmann is Assistant Professor at the Chair of International Marketing, University of Vienna (e-mail: christina.sichtmann@univie.ac.at). Maren von Selsasinsky is Doctoral Student at the Marketing Department, Freie Universität Berlin (e-mail: mvselas@gmail.com).

Journal International Marketing, Volume 18, Number 1, March 2010
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