e-journal

Calculating customer intimacy:accounting numbers in a sales and marketing department

---

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine the role of accounting numbers in one
organisation’s attempts to enact and calculate customer intimacy, given renewed interest in
organisation-customer relationships.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilises actor-network theory in conducting an
ethnography at a wholesale financial services firm pursuing a strategy of customer intimacy. The
main empirical site was the sales and marketing department, where actors were attempting to further
their knowledge of customer needs in the present and anticipate them into the future.
Findings – The paper finds heterogeneous enactments of “customer intimacy” through a “numeric
calculation network” and a “sales calculation network”. The former sought to use accounting numbers
to calculate how customer intimacy was enacted and impose upon a sales-force periphery a regime of
performance measurement. The latter eventually destabilised the proposed performance measures by
promoting their own basis for calculating customers. These were more diverse and “implicit”,
comprising talk and communication through co-location and proximity with customers.
Originality/value – The paper provides a number of insights into the role of accounting as a
calculative practice. The observed emergence of novel means of producing accounting numbers
outside the domain of the accounting function and within the sales and marketing department has
important implications for the practice and study of accounting. In addition, potential limits to the use of accounting in enabling “action at a distance” are identified through the observed contest between
“hard” accounting’ numbers and softer modes of calculation.

Keywords Accounting, Customers, Customer relations, Customer orientation

---

Ketersediaan

Tidak ada salinan data

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

No. Panggil

-

Penerbit

: Emerald Group., 2008

Deskripsi Fisik

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Vol. 21 No. 1, 2008 pp. 78-103

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

-

Klasifikasi

-

Tipe Isi

-

Tipe Media

-

Tipe Pembawa

-

Edisi

-

Subjek

AKUNTANSI

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

Asmawati/Syahrial

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar