Digitalization processes in small professional service firms: drivers, barriers and emerging organisational tensions

PurposeThis study aimed to provide an exploratory analysis of digitalization processes in small professional service firms (SPSFs) by examining their main drivers and barriers and their impact on customer management practices, considering the intra-organizational, inter-organizational and service offering dimensions.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a qualitative, exploratory and inductive research methodology based on in-depth interviews with 19 owners or consultants of small tax/accounting firms, focusing on the role of digitalization in their internal and external processes.FindingsThe findings reveal external and internal barriers to and drivers of digitalization, as well as its effects on customer management practices. They also reveal the emergence of tensions related to the intra-organizational, inter-organizational and service offering dimensions.Originality/valueThis work contributes to the research on the role of digital technologies in the professional service sector, with a focus on SPSFs, which has thus far received limited attention. This research highlights the complexity of combining increasingly standardized processes and services with the need to maintain flexibility and informality in internal and external interactions.

Understanding salespeople's resistance to, and acceptance and leadership of customer-driven change

Salespeople's responses to change have been extensively examined in the context of sales literature, sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and other sales technologies. The majority of sales technology changes were typically organization driven. In contrast, during the COVID-19 pandemic, salespeople faced changing sales processes that were increasingly customer-driven. We seek a deeper understanding of salespeople's acceptance of customer-driven change and interview 38 sales professionals to enhance our understanding of salespeople's perceptions and behaviors. Our findings show an increase in the use of technology, increased marketing-sales integration, and shifts in sales processes and organizations. We identify three profiles of salespeople: those that resist change, accept change, and lead change. We find differences in salespeople driven by their perceptions of customer environments and their capabilities, sales management function, and organization factors relevant in defining attitude toward change. We consequently derive implications for theory and practice.

Managing uncertainty during a global pandemic: An international business perspective.

Despite the perennial need to understand and manage uncertainty in international business, there is no comprehensive framework that incorporates different types of uncertainty, their antecedents and outcomes, and the different coping strategies used by managers and their outcomes. This makes it difficult for international business managers to understand the types of uncertainty in their businesses and develop appropriate strategies to deal with it effectively, especially during times such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This paper uses an extensive review of the international business literature to address the above research gap by identifying the different types of uncertainty, their antecedents and outcomes, the coping strategies used to mitigate their impact, and the consequences of these actions. The authors also use examples from the current Covid-19 crisis to assess the firms' responses and their consequences. The paper concludes with some implications for international business managers and directions for future research.