Most sectors of industry, commerce, and government have reported variation in the performance payoff from electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In this paper we build on surprisingly sparse literature regarding the importance of managerial discretion to show that the heterogeneity of beliefs held by managers about e-CRM execution matter when explaining e-CRM success. Drawing on a data sample comprising 50 interviews and 293 survey responses we utilise segmentation techniques to identify significant differences in managerial beliefs and then associate these belief segments with e-CRM performance. Results indicate that (1) three distinct types of managers can be identified based on the heterogeneity of their e-CRM beliefs: mindfully optimistic, mindfully realistic, and mindfully pessimistic; (2) that there is far less homogeneity at the individual firm level than is normally assumed in the literature; (3) that het-erogeneity in managerial beliefs is systematically associated with organisational performance; and (4) these results serve to remind practitioners that e-CRM performance is dependent upon the right balance between managerial optimism and realism. © 2007, IGI Global. All rights reserved.
CITATION STYLE
Coltman, T., & Dolnicar, S. (2007). E-CRM and Managerial Discretion. International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR), 3(2), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.4018/jebr.2007040104
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