Exploratory^ Study

Global Journal of Flexible Systems tVlanagement 2008, Vol. 9, Nos. 2 & 3, pp 41-54

CRM Change Management n an Emerging Country Context: An Exploratory Study in India

Darshan Desai
260, Roanoke Street, Woodbridge, NJ-07095, U.S.A. Ph: 01-732-925-9314; Email: darshudesai@gmail.com

Subrat Sahu
Institute of Petroleum Management, Gandhinagar Highway, Raisan, Gandhinagar - 382 007. Gujarat, India. Ph: 91-79-23276911 - 18; Fax: 91-79-23276364; Email: prof.subratsahu@gmail.com

Abstract
All over the world, change management has found to be very crucial for CRM success. However, the CRM change management does not work the same way across different contexts. Few studies in developed countries assume that a set of prescriptive CRM change management activities works well in any 'given' context. These studies ignore the interplay of organizational actions and the broader context. Drawing on the institutional theory, this study explores this interplay; based on the repertory grid data collected from Indian organizations, it finds how structural and cultural context of an emerging country affects CRM change management activities.

Keywords: Customer Relatiotiship Management (CRM), CRM change, change management, emerging countries, institutional theory, socio-cultural context, national context, repertory grid technique

Introduction
Scholars agree on the great potentials of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and processes. CRM has developed as an approach based on maintaining positive relationships with customers, enhancing customer loyalty, and expanding customer lifetime value (Brassington & Pettit, 2000; Ahn, Kim, & Han, 2003). However, very few organizations succeed in capturing real potentials of CRM, while many others fail. In recent exploration of critical success factors for CRM, King and Burgess (2008) highlight that CRM change management, which includes both hard (technologies) and soft (people) aspects, is a defining factor between the success and the failure of CRM. The soft aspects of CRM change management involve influencing people's feelings, attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors to achieve support for a CRM change. Despite of its importance, academic literature gives a little attention to the soft aspects of CRM change management. Apart from bland advice on consulting all stakeholders and selling the ideas to the potential users, there is a remarkable shortage of competent information on soft aspects of CRM change management (Comer & Rogers 2004). Without appropriate human interactions, returns to the investments on CRM systems and processes are at risk (Boulding, Staelin, Ehret, & Johnston, 2005). Hence, in this paper, we focus on soft aspects of CRM change management.

CRM change implies transitioning from a current state to a desired future state; this transition involves alignment of organizations' strategies, people, processes, systems, technologies, structure, skills and values to the goals of customer centricity, customer relationships and customer engagement. CRM change management is a structured approach for such transition. This approach can be planned (Lewin 1940) or emergent (Garvin 1993; Bumes 2000) or a combination of both. There is no 'one best way' to manage a CRM change. A change management approach depends on the context of change (Bumes, 2000). Sometimes, the best change management approaches for the organizations in different contexts are radically different. The same CRM change strategy that has succeeded in the context of developed countries may be a sure way to failure in emerging markets. There are inherent values embedded in the CRM literature that do not reconcile with the values of people in emerging Asian countries (Peppers & Rogers 2002). The literature has implicitly assumed that people unerringly respond to the basis of self-interest and selfgratification and CRM change management works the same way across different contexts and cultures (Peppers & Rogers 2002). These assumptions do not hold true in many emerging countries of Asia. Certain cultural values like filial piety, delayed gratification, loyalty to family and clan, and the structural differences of an emerging country (Sharma & Iyer 2006) related to infrastructure development and
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Darshan Desai and Subrat Sahu

manifestation of a more fundamental theoretical distinction about a relationship between an action in the organization and its context (Avgerou 2001). The theoretical The significance of the effects of the context should not underpinning of technical rational perspective that be over emphasized (Avgerou 2001). Invariably, CRM emphasizes rationally planned actions can be traced to the change management in emerging countries involves transfer resource dependency theory (Lawrence & Lorsch 1969; of strategies, technologies and organizational practices, Pfeffer & Salancik 1978). This school of thought attempts which have been originally proved useful in the context of to explain development of the organization in terms of the developed countries. However, their potential value and available strategic choices, promote the decision making their fit in local socio-organizational conditions can not be capacity, and therefore, focuses more on rational principles. taken for granted. Therefore, the study aims to explore the Despite being widely influential in the business management effects of structural and cultural context of an emerging literature, this view has been challenged (Ciborra 2000; country on CRM change management activities. Repertory Avgerou 2001); some scholars argue that it is not possible grid technique (RGT) is used to explore the perceptions of "to explain what is happening in the organization by the senior executives of 29 Indian organizations about the considering only 'rational' actions of managers and effects of an emerging country context on CRM change technology experts and provide a conceptual platform to management activities. Findings of the study highlight how study 'irrationalities' stemming from the institutional context the context affects the CRM change management activities. of the organization as well as from the cultural systems Such consideration of the effects of a context is more embedded in them" relevant for countries, _ /-*/ ^ .. ..i. . i < j j ^i. (Avgerou 2001, p. 48). where organizations ^ ^ ^ ^^'^^ ^^^ change Strategy that has succeeded in the An influential pursue their CRM context of developed countries may be a sure way to failure in alternative theory to vision by emulating emerging markets. study an organizational other regions'' ^ " change is the successful strategies and practices. The paper is organized institutional theory. This theory highlights the importance as follows. The next section describes conceptual of considering the effects of subjective aspects associated background and research questions. This is followed by a with the institutional context and the cultural systems. It description of the research method utilized for this study. does not deny that the actions in the organizations involve The subsequent section provides an analysis of data and a calculated choices, but complements efficiency-concerned discussion of results. The paper concludes with the accounts of the organizations with subjective elements implications of the study for practice and research and associated with institutional forces and cultural systems of inherent limitations. a context. Institutional theory addresses the interplay of a context and organizational actions that leads to an Conceptual Background and Research Questions organizational change (Greenwood & Hinings 1996; Oliver Theoretical Underpinnings 1992). CRM change is generally a cross-functional and According to institutional theory, interplay of an organizational change. Two different theories explain the organization's CRM change management activities and its processes of an organizational change; first theory considers contexts lead to a CRM change. In general, academic the processes of a change as rationally planned literature ignores this interplay of CRM change management interventions, while the second one perceives them in terms actions with the contexts. A couple of studies on CRM of situated actions that involve political and subjective change management (Kale 2005; Comer & Rogers 2004) are aspects. The most frequently told story in the CRM literature conducted in the developed country context, and address is of rationally planned interventions and methodological CRM change management as an organizational action in a development of processes and technologies (Buttle 2001; 'given' context. Instead of assuming a 'given' context, it is Sue & Morin 2001; Winer 2001; Payne & Frow 2005). Due important to explore CRM change management in different to high failure rates and significant doubts about the contexts to highlights its effects and interplay with CRM relevance of CRM, academic literature has focused more on change management activities. Indian context, being methodological development of processes and technologies; culturally and structurally quite different from a 'given' it has ignored apparently 'irrational', subjective and political developed country context, is suitable to study this elements of actions that are specific to a context. The interplay. The forces of Indian context are important in literature has implicitly assumed that CRM takes place the creating pressures against or in favor of a CRM change. same way across different contexts. Except for a couple of Response of the organization in terms of CRM change studies that focused on CRM from European perspectives, management activities to these contextual forces depends on (Mack, Mayo & Khare 2005; Van Bentum & Stone 2005), its intra-organizational dynamics (Greenwood & Hinings there is a significant dearth of research that addresses effects 1996). The intensity of these intra-organizational pressures of contexts or culture on CRM. is again the outcome of their links with the context (Greenwood & Hinings 1996), and hence, it is important to The distinction between technical rational and situated analyze the context. There are many different ways to approaches to study an organizational change is a institutional environment are important in affecting CRM change management approaches and activities.

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analyze a context; Jones (1999) divides a context in five distinct parts: socio-cultural, national-structural, industry, organizational and individual. In this study, since our focus is on the broader context, we focus on the first two aspects of the Indian context i.e. socio-cultural and nationalstructural contexts and explore their effects on CRM change management.
Effects of Socio-cultural Context on CRM Change Management

resources, which in turn enable a CRM change. For example, at MKS, an IT consulting firm based in India, a CRM related knowledge mangement initiative failed to get off the ground due to neglect of some of these socio-cultural dimensions (Lam 2005). However, till date, very limited knowledge exists about how these socio-cultural dimensions affect CRM change management. Hence, the study aims to explore. Research Question 1: How does the Indian socio-cultural context affect CRM change management?
Effects of National Structural Context on CRM Change Management

Socio-cultural context mainly refers to cultural, cognitive and normative forces. It includes broadly agreed upon sociocultural norms, related to what actions are deemed morally correct and how actions and symbols are interpreted. Culture is conceptualized as shared symbols, nomis, and values in a social collectivity. There are five dimensions of sociocultural context: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and Confucian dynannism (Hofstede & Bond 1988). r, , A- ' w n

National structural context that affect CRM change management mainly refers to two dimensions: infrastructural development, and country's institutional environment (Sharma & Iyer 2006; Sheth & Sharma 2005). Country's infrastructure development refers to such elements as roads, telecommunications, spread and use of data processing devices, computers, and

Previous (osee Hofstede

fundamental cultural differences between Anglo-American societies such as Australia, Great Britain and USA and Indian and Chinese dominated societies. According to these studies, the Indian and Chinese societies have higher power distance scores, lower scores on individuality, lower scores on masculinity, lower scores on uncertainty avoidance and high scores with respect to Confucian dynamism. Previous research has examined the effects of these cultural dimensions on IT enabled organizational change (Martinsons & Davison 1997; Agrawal & Haleem 2005), use of information systems (Srite & Karahanna 2006; Agrawal & Haleem 2005; Bandyopadyay & Fraccastoro 2007), marketing practices (Redding 1982; Ndusibi 2004). These studies are important in highlighting relevance of these cultural dimensions, and suggest that the assumptions and values that underlie these scores on these five cultural dimensions give rise to different beliefs and perspectives on a wide range of management practices. Till date, to our knowledge, there is no study that addresses effects of these socio-cultural dimensions on CRM change management. There is some evidence in the literature (Ralston et al, 1997; Overby 2005; Hofstede 1985) that suggests that the socio-cultural dimensions are important in influencing competing values and interests of people. These competing values and interests in turn affect intra-organizational forces that affect CRM change management. The literature (Boode 2005; Dash, Bruning & Gain 2006) supports the effects of these socio-cultural dimensions on power relationships and organizational politics. These power relationships and organizational politics are important intra-organizational factors that affect a CRM change. The literature (Shane, Venkataraman & Mac Millan 1995; Lu & Heard 1995) supports the effects of these socio-cultural dimensions on ability to take risks, adopt innovations and mobilize

studies The forces of the Indian cultural and structural context are accessibility to internet & Bond' important in creating pressures against or in favor of a CRM and broadband (Sheth i& Sharma 2005). An 1988) have found change. -institution refers to any
standing, social entity that exerts influence and regulation over other social entities (North 1990), and country's institutional environment in this study refers to different formal or semi-formal institutions within a country that regulates and influence CRM change management. Country's institutional environment includes government laws, other regulatory national or international agencies, financial, marketing and educational institutions, industry associations, social networks. It also includes efficient and effective distribution and communication channels (Iyer 1997). Previous research has examined the effects of these two dimensions on marketing practices (Iyer 1997; Johnson & Arunthanes 1995; Sharma & Dominguez 1992), information systems (King et al 1994; Wang, Klein & Jiang 2006), and organizational change (Geppert, Matten & Williams 2003; Golembiewski 1991; Bhattacharyya 1980). These studies support relevance of effects of country's infrastructure development and institutional environment on a range of management practices. These institutional and infrastructure factors can affect managers' risk related decisions (Makhija & Stewart 2002); availability and mobilization of required resources for a CRM change (Aveni 1978), availability and qualities of human resources required for a CRM change (Gooderham, Nordhaug & Ringdal 1999), and skill, education and training of the people; these all factors are important in affecting CRM change. The literature provides some evidence that country's national-structural context influence CRM change management For example, in absence of an automated electronic data capture systems at the retail check-outs, during the implementation of a CRM change, a producer of consumer products in India faces a lot of hurdles in accessing customer information (first stage of CRM) due to their reliance on individual retailers. In majority of these small retail outlets, the information is
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Darshan Desai and Subrat Sahu Elicit elements from the participant is a way of ensuring that the elements fall within respondents range of convenience, however it restrict study's ability to compare results among the group of executives, and the elicited change management activities may not be representative of the all the phases of CRM change management process. Hence, to ensure that the elements are relevant and falls within respondents' range of convenience, three group discussions have been conducted in the three CRM workshops, where the executives, involved in CRM change management, have elicited eight important CRM change management activities. To ensure that these change management activities are not repetitive and still representative of the area being investigated (Beail 1985; Easterby-Smith 1980), in-depth interviews with four academicians and four CRM consultants have been conducted. These interviews have helped identifying some of the repetitive activities and related activities that can be

managed without formal systems and customer relationships are based on personal, informal contacts of a shop-owner, who lacks enough incentives to share it with the producer (Sharma and Iyer 2006). However, to our knowledge, till date, very limited knowledge exists about how these factors affects CRM change management. Therefore, the study aims to explore. Research Question 2: How does the Indian nationalstructural context affect CRM change management?

Methodology
Research Method

Due to considerable lack of research in this field, broad research questions are derived. These questions are more exploratory and less defined. Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) provides a solution to some of the challenges for addressing these less defined and more exploratory research questions. RGT is a merged together. After way of capturing what Repertory Grid Technique is used to capture the theories that ] the interviews, six \ theories people are change managers use to make sense of the effects of the Indian contexts using to make sense of management activities on CRM change management. i have been short-listed. something, and These elements have quantifying that been described in Table-1. During the semi-structured qualitative feedback (Rogers & Ryals 2007). It helps to interviews, while rating for the effects of the context, it is obtain rich, qualitative feedback covering both descriptive ensured that these six elements don't have different and value-based explanation. To explore how a certain group of individuals interpreted the effects of Indian context Table 1 Elements Description on CRM change management, semi-structured interviews are conducted to collect RGT data. The RGT contains three Description Elements major components: i) elements, ii) constructs, and iii) links Assess external context, Assessing readiness for el (Easterby-Smith 1991). CRM change operating environment, & The elements are objects of attentions or items that the participant will evaluate. These elements can be elicited from the participants or can be supplied by the researcher. The majority of studies in the psychology literature utilize individuals or roles as the elements (Neinieyer et al. 2002); however, business researchers have employed a wider range of elements, including work activities or tasks (Brook & Brook 1989; Smith 1980), methods of communication (Hutchison 1998), different types of information systems (Whyte & Bytheway 1996), and the activities that comprise the performance appraisal process (Wright & Lam 2002). Some scholars have indicated that the elements must be unique or non-overlapping (Hunter & Beck 2000), however, others have argued for less restrictive requirements (Neimeyer et al. 2002; Wright and Lam 2002), so long as the elements fall within the respondent's range of convenience (Fransella et al. 2004; Davis & Hufnagel, 2007). Objects of attention in this study are activities of a CRM change management process. Due to complexity of CRM change management process, its activities are interrelated with each other; it is not possible to dissect the whole process into discrete and unique activities. Hence, it is very important to ensure that the elements fall within respondent's range of convenience and they don't have different meaning for different research participants.
mental models; evaluate readiness and required changes in the people, process and technology
e2

Setting & Communicating Vision of the overall change CRM change strategies destination; Prioritize business for next CRM change impact of a set of required specific changes; Setting and communicating a methods and path of these changes. Building leadership team for mobilizing CRM change Taking charge of the change; Influencing and persuading people; Create change champions and build leadership team.

e3

e4

Aligning organization for Creating linkages; Alignment and CRM change removal of structural impediments;Creating new routines End user training & Empowerment Capability and confidence building; Provide opportunity to learn, ownership and challenging goals. Compare expected change vs. change achieved; Compare expected business impact of change vs. actual business impact; Gain feedback for next more informed change; Learn.

e5

e6

Assessing change performance and feedback for next CRM change

CRM Change Management in an Fmerging Country Context: An Exploratory Study in India meanings for different participants. The literature about the effects of socio-cultural context (Hofstede 1997; Hofstede & Bond 1988; Martinsons & Davison 1997; Agrawal & Haleem 2005; Srite & Karahanna 2006; Agrawal & Haleem 2005; Bandyopadyay and Fraccastoro 2007) and national-structural context (Sharma & Iyer 2006; Sheth & Sharma 2005; King et al 1994; Wang, Klein, Jiang 2006) have provided us a pool of relevant constructs for the study. These constructs are described in Table-2, The constructs are used to structure the conversations during the semi-structured interviews. During the interviews, each construct has been discussed to ensure its understanding. Each respondent has been asked to choose and discuss the -

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activities in their organization. At the end of the interview, when repertory grid has been completed, a preliminary confirmation has been obtained regarding which contextual factors are of the highest importance. This process has entailed visual comparison of rows in the completed repertory gdd. Sample and Research Participants

40 executives from Indian banking, telecom and retail organizations have been approached. These organizations either have already implemented CRM, or they are planning to implement CRM, A copy of the overall study report has been promised to the participating organizations for their internal evaluation and constructs (contextual The most frequently elicited contextual factors affecting CRM use. Study has adopted judgment sampling factors), which are change management are power distance, infra-structure method for choosing relevant in affecting development and institutional environment. the right sample. Out the elements, A of the 40 executives, "laddering" technique has been employed to encourage 29 executives have been willing to participate in the study. participants to enunciate each construct (Hunter & Beck These 29 executives have been from the 29 firms in 2000), The technique incorporates a series of "how" following industries: retail (n=7), telecom (n=7), and questions, which results in further details about the construct financial service (n=15) in India, Out of 15 financial services and increase the understanding of what research participant organizations, 9 organizations have implemented CRM, means. while other 6 organizations are planning to implement CRM, All the telecom organizations already have Table 2: Constructs Description implemented CRM, Four retail organizations have already Constructs Description implemented CRM, while other three are still planning for it. In the 29 organizations, interviews have been conducted cl Power distance Degree to which a society accepts with the senior level executives. During the interviews, it is a unequal distributions of power ensured that the participant has a good knowledge about c2 Individualism Degree to which society values organization's CRM change management initiatives. The independence vs, group sample includes senior level IT (n=8), marketing (n=10), membership general management (n=6), and CRM executives (n=5). Ages c3 Masculinity Degree to which society defines of the all interviewees have been in the range of 35-57 achievement in terms of acquisition of material years, 12 executives have been below 40 years of age, 15 possession have been in between 40 and 50 years of age, and 2 have c4 Uncertainty been above 50 years of age. In general, the semi structured Degree to which society tolerates avoidance ambiguous situations interviews have lasted around 30-45 minutes. They are mainly conducted in English, With the permission of the c5 Confucius Focus towards future Dynamism participants, the interviews have been tape recorded or transcribed to ensure that the fieldwork produced quality c6 Infrastructure Structural elements that provide development data. The data set, derived from each interview, has been the supportive framework such as, roads, telecommunications, computers, set out as a grid. An example of a Repertory grid is shown internet, broadband etc. in Appendix- I,
c7 Institutional Environment Institutions within a country that regulates and influence CRM change management

Data Analysis The complete grids can be submitted to different methods of analysis. The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods of repertory gdd analysis. Qualitative Content Analysis During the content analysis, to understand how each construct affect CRM change management activities, all elicited statements of the semi-structured interviews have been grouped into themes, where there appeared to be commonality in wording and/or meaning. Next, all the themes explaining how each construct affect CRM change management activities have been noted and systematically
2008, Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management

For linking elements with the constructs, the participants have been asked to rate each of change management activities in terms of five point scale i,e, a very high, high, moderate, low, and negligible impact of relevant contextual factors and then verbally they explained their response. This verbal response and the explanation of effects of context on CRM change management is more important to this study than the rating itself. Respondents have also been asked about any other relevant factors related to cultural and national context that affected CRM change management

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recorded. The content analysis has elicited a total of 323 themes about how seven contextual factors affect the six CRM change management activities. A coding frame has been agreed, and then, the themes have been sorted by code. Following further consideration, some of the codes have been combined to create broader emerging themes. This has been carried out manually by two separate researchers working independently. In general, both the researchers agreed on the common themes.

lead to less frequent, and distorted two-way communications. Despite of the easy acceptance of top-level decisions, due to less frequent dialogues, it is challenging to get user inputs, participation, and fresh new ideas about a CRM change. Hence, for emergent and bottom-up change strategies, a lot of structural and cultural changes are required, while for a planned CRM change strategies, initiating a change is easier, but, the change implementation face a lot of hurdles. During the implementation of a CRM change, sometimes, it is perceived as a "management ploy" Quantitative Grid Analysis to get the people share their contacts and gain more power. When information is considered to be a source of positional Principle component analysis with Varimax rotation has been power, cross-functional integration is also difficult. People conducted for each individual grid. This analysis has helped have more fear to loose to identify central constructs for each grid, i jp^g fg high power distance culture in India, emergent change positional power, and

Central constructs are gfj-^^fgoies require a lot of Structural and cultural changes, the most important and "^ planned CRM change strategies, initiating a change implementation p of highly correlated easier, but, the change implementation faces a lot of hurdles, change. In such contextual factors
affecting CRM change management in each grid. Construct centrality refers to importance of a construct in relation to all other constructs (Tan & Hunter 2002). In this study, it addresses the executives' perception about the most important contextual factors affecting CRM change management. For testing validity of this analysis, the central constructs for each grid has been compared with the respondents' conflrmation about the most important constructs. In all 29 cases, the central constructs of the grid have included the most important construct mentioned by that participant. To understand how contextual factors affect different CRM change management activities differently, element preferences have been explored. Element preferences are average column scores for each grid; they indicate the perceived desirability of each element compared to all other elements (Tan & Hunter 2002). In this study, the most preferred elements describe the CRM change management activities, which are perceived to be highly affected by Indian contextual factors. Results and Discussions Results of Qualitative Content Analysis Results of a qualitative content analysis generate a list of the most common themes, which represent the participants' perceptions about how the contextual factors affect CRM change management activities. These cotnmon themes can be disaggregated into two categories. The one set of common themes explain the effects of socio-cultural context on CRM change management, and answer the first research question, while the another set of the common themes explain the effects of national-structural context on CRM change management, and answer the second research question. These two categories of the common themes are summarized in this section. Effects of Socio-cultural Context on CRM Change Management According to the common themes, during the readiness assessment for CRM change, high power distance culture context, it becomes more important to seek influential political support in mobilizing CRM change. It is very important to build trust and confidence. Emerging middle class with a high ambition to gain more positional power provides opportunities to find good change agents to build leadership team, where a again a positional power can be a "cost-effective" reward. Low individualist culture is another socio-cultural dimension that affects CRM change in the context of emerging countries of Asia. Less individualist culture many times leads to less competitive people, who are less motivated to use technology to achieve personal goals. In such context, CRM technology may be perceived as a timeconsuming burden, and, in initial phases of end-user training, "hand-holding" may be required. Due to more collective culture, relationships are considered more important over tasks and informal communications among colleagues/friend becomes quite relevant. At such time, flowing 'positive stories' about CRM change through the right change agents helps a lot in making people ready for change as well as in mobilizing change. Now, social networks play increasingly important role in flowing these "positive stories". When people are more likely to comply with the opinions of "important others", training, orientation by "important other" also makes it more effective. Due to higher levels of social-bonding in teams, peer pressure is comparatively more relevant in adoption of CRM change. Due to more feminine culture in many emerging countries, people consider achievement in terms of reputation, human contacts, relationships and the quality of the living environment. In such context, improvement in relationships and living environment provides reasonably good motivation to adopt a CRM change. Perception about ease of use becomes more important than usefulness of CRM system. Easy to use and "effort-free" CRM system with sufflcient tech support is more important than a system that requires some more efforts for achievement of work goals and advancement. More efforts are needed to set clear

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targets, timelines, and urgency of change. Less clear job and organizations. The cultural 'differences' between the responsibilities may lead to "easy shifting of blames". For countries may be vanishing, while cultural diversities and aligning organization for CRM change, more attention is identities within the countries are getting stronger. More needed to clearly define activities, tasks in terms of what specifically, in India, the high linguistic, region, and religion task should be performed by whom and when. Due to higher diversity adds to the cultural diversity within the country. importance of qualitative results, instead of converting Here, it is a very well "co-existence of extremely different everything into monetary terms, it is important to maintain beliefs and people". Hence there are opportunities to a set of matrices to monitor business benefits of a CRM capitalize, cultivate and take advantage of cultural diversity change project. Such matrices help to highlight "short-term in forming CRM team, and adoption of CRM change. wins" in terms of ,. . , ,. . , .. \. . '-. . \ Effects of National qualitative and collectivist culture when relationship is more important over \ structural Context on quantitative results. In :, flowing 'positive stories' about CRM change through \ cRM Change the organizations with more feminine culture, right change agents helps a lot. j Management caring nurturing leaders and CRM change agents may Due to underprovide a secure environment that support CRM change. developed IT, and telecom infrastructures, the emerging country organizations have highly fragmented customer data. Low uncertainty avoidance culture leads to higher levels In this context, organizations need to put more efforts and of uninformed optimism and excitement about a new idea investment for creating and maintaining a good quality of change. Organizations with such culture have the customer database. In absence of proper telecom opportunity to use this enthusiasm for a wide-spread CRM infrastructure, organizations face more resistance for change. People are less likely to seek detailed information initiating a CRM change that involves setting up callto avoid uncertainties and are habitual to take fast intuitive centers. However, the under-developed telecom infrastructure decisions in the absence of data. At this time, a bottom-up creates enormous growth opportunities for telecom approach needs to be adopted to know which information organizations; Indian telecom organizations focus more on is the most important and which one is burden and useless. the core business and likely to tie-up with global IT In this context, it is very important to devote sufficient time companies for CRM. These kinds of collaborations and tieassessing the areas, where the fast, less informed, and ups create more contextual pressures to go for a CRM intuitive decisions undermine CRM peribrmance. This fast change and spread global best practices. Because of lower intuitive decision making processes can be the sources of spread of house hold PCs and peoples' fear to use online competitive advantage. Hence, while imitating best channel for shopping and banking, organizations face more practices, organizations must be careful that they do not resistance for e-CRM change initiatives. However, an replace a source of a competitive advantage with less emerging class of people in India uses intemet for the first efficient process. People are less likely to reject deviant time through their cell-phones, as it is comparatively cheaper ideas or behaviors, hence, if the organizations are capable and more efficient alternative of PC. This trend opens up of molding structural and cultural barriers of two-way new opportunities for e-CRM and m-CRM changes and communications, new creative ideas related to CRM change accelerates the use of intemet channels. bubble up. It is very important to ensure that such new creative ideas are well communicated horizontally and Indian governments' regulations related to opening up vertically and rewarded well. of a sector affects competition. Increased competition leads to increased organization, investments, adoption of Organizations with Confucian dynamism culture avoid sophisticated technology, innovation, which in turn, enables transformational CRM changes and large-scale CRM change. With technology adoptions and increased use implementation of CRM at a time, and prefer a slow cautious of internet, an organization uses increasing numbers of and incremental approach to CRM technology adoption and channels; increased numbers of channels create more need change management, and give importance to piloting. In for channel integration and generate more contextual such a culture, more time, efforts, and investments are needed pressure for CRM change. However, when the Indian to customize CRM system judiciously. It is imporiant to be organizations do not monitor channels for quality assurance, careful in identifying and satisfying only critical business it can be difficult to assure quality of customer service, and requirements through customization and one need to be more efforts are needed to align organizations' performance careful for not replicating existing practices on the CRM measurement and reward systems around CRM change. platforms. Sometimes, it is important to put more efforts to These common themes emerged during the study gain elaborate changes in the existing business processes to highlights that in addition to government regulations and make them customer centric. channel networks, the other institutional development of the Some of the themes emerged during the study have country also affects CRM change. In absence of credit rating described cultural globalization in terms of how some of the agencies, important customer information related to credit specific Indian cultural values have changed over the period histories, and etc. is not available outside the organization, of time. The typically 'westem' values of individualism and hence, a good quality customer database is more important masculinity are widely evident in many of the Indian people and provides a competitive advantage. Due to more
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Darshan Desai and Subrat Sahu

importance of customer data, and less reliable law enforcement, some public sector banks still face fear of customer data theft, and don't outsource their call centre operations to BPOs, instead they prefer to have their captive units. Increasing spread and importance of professional and unprofessional social networks create a "buzz" around a CRM change. Higher numbers of good low cost universities in the country generate a pool of college educated, young, energetic people, who may participate in the CRM change. However, screening of really useful people & their training is more challenging. CRM training in the country is not widely available; B-schools don't place required attention on CRM. Fragmented retail structure has created challenges for e-retailing and adoption of e-CRM related changes in retail sector. With the entry of big players in retail segment and recent improvement in retail supply chain integration, retail organizations may face more contextual pressure for adoption of CRM changes. Fewer legal restrictions in the country regarding getting and using customer information open more alternatives for CRM change. Overall, the most frequently elicited contextual factors affecting CRM change management are power distance, infra-structure development and institutional environment. These three constructs cover 58 percent of the themes elicited. Across the three industries, infrastructure development and institutional environment are among the most frequently elicited constructs. However, it is interesting to note the inter-industry differences related to most frequently elicited socio-cultural factors. In the banking industry, most frequently elicited socio-cultural construct is power-distance. In the telecom industry, most frequently elicited socio-cultural constructs are Confucius dynamism, and individualism. In the retail industry, most frequently elicited socio-cultural constructs are Confucius dynamism, and uncertainty avoidance.
Results of Quantitative Grid Analysis

Confucian dynamism, institutional development and infrastructure development. Central constructs in the retail industry executives' repertory grids are masculinity, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, Confucian dynamism, institutional development and infrastructure development. Table 3: Central Constructs and Element Preferences
Grid Factors % of no. (Central Variance Constructs) explained
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Element Preferences
el 4.0 3.7 2.5 4.0 2.8 3.2 3.1 3.2 3.4 3.4 3.6 3.5 3.5 3.8 3.7 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 2.5 2.2 3.0 2.5 2.7 3.0 e2 3.4 3.5 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.8 3.8 3.5 3.4 3.4 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.0 3.2 3.5 3.5 2.7 2.7 3.2 3.0 3.0 2.2 2.7 3.0 2.5 2.7 3.0 2.7 e3 3.0 2.9 2.7 2.7 3.5 3.2 2.5 2.5 3.0 3.0 3.4 3.0 2.0 3.8 3.2 2.2 3.0 3.0 2.2 2.5 3.0 3.0 2.2 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 e4 3.0 e5 3.2 e6 2.4 2.9 2.2 1.5 3.0 2.2 2.8 2.8 2.0 2.0 2.4 2.5 2.8 2.8 2.7 3.2 3.2 3.0 3.2 3.2 3.5 3.5 2.7 2.7 3.2 3.2 2.7

cl,c7 c3,c5,c7 c2,c3 c2,c6 c3,cl c6,cl c6, cl c3, cl

c2

80 92 73 84 81 88 78 88 56 81 55 75 95 89 75 74 96 74 91 87 84 82 76 68 89 74 68 84 90

2.9 3.5 3.2 2.5 2.8 2.7 3.0 3.0 3.2 3.2 3.2 2.7 2.7 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.2 3.5 3.0 3.3 3.3 3.2 3.2 3.2 2.7 3.4 3.4 3.2

c3,c2

1 1 c7
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 c6

cl, c7 cl, c7
c7 c4

2.2 2.7 2.7 3.0 2.1 2.5 3.2 3.2 2.5 3.0 3.5 2.5 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.7 3.2 3.2 3.2 2.2 2.5 3.0 2.5 2.5

c6,c7
c6 c7

c5, c6 c5,c6 c5,c7

c4 c5

Using statistical software SPSS, factor solutions are obtained for each individual grid (Bell 1997). All solutions perform satisfactorily in terms of Bartlett's test of sphericity and the Kaiser, Meyer, Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling accuracy. Table 3 describes factors (central construct/s) and percentage of variance explained by each grid factor solution. Variance explained varied from 55 per cent to 96 per cent. The analysis produces 11 single-factor solutions, 18 two-factor solutions and 1 three-factor solution. In Table 3, first 15 grids present the perceptions of banking executives, next seven grids present the ^ _

c2,c6
c7 c2

28
29

c3, c4 c4, c7

3.2 2.5
3.0 2.5

3.5 2.7

Table-3

also

perceptions of telecom When a Culture is more feminine, easy to use and "effort-free" presents element executives and last I CRM system with sufficient tech support is more important preferences of all 29 seven grids present the | fj^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^j^^ requires some more efforts for achievement ^^^'^"''^.^^ i" ^" three
perceptions of retail f u i executives. As observed i-^'-^^''?^^-** -in Table 3, central constructs in the banking industry executives' repertory grids are power distance, institutional environment, infrastructure development, masculinity and individualism. Central constructs in the telecom industry executives' repertory grids are uncertainty avoidance. industries, CRM change management activities, which are perceived to be highly affected by Indian contextual factors, are: i) accessing readiness for CRM change, and ii) setting and communicating CRM change strategies. The CRM change management activities, which were perceived to be JJ J

CRM Change Management in an Emerging Country Context: An Exploratory Study in India the least affected by Indian contextual factors, are: i) aligning organization for CRM change, and ii) accessing change performance and gaining feedback. Discussions

49

The results of this research suggest that the contextual factors influence CRM change management activities. Overall, recognition, understanding and management of these contextual factors are important in successfully managing a CRM change. This study has augmented previous research on CRM change by adopting institutional perspectives, and extended our understanding about how factors specific to an Indian context affect CRM change management. These findings can also be applied to other emerging countries, where socio-cultural and structural context resemble with the study context. , , ^ . ^ .. I- ^ . . J one of the most \ In low uncertainty avoidance culture, fast intuitive decision elicited Important and socio-cultural construct common finding of the making processes can be sources of competitive advantage; qualitative content hence, while imitating best practices, organizations must be by telecom executives, analysis and the careful that they do not replace a source of a competitive while the central most common quantitative grid advantage with less an efficient process. of these construct analysis is about executives is Confucian dynamism. relevance of country's infrastructure development and institutional environment in affecting CRM change Analysis of element preferences suggests that the management across the three industries. Both the constructs activities related to early phases of CRM change are more related to the country context are the most frequently "context-sensitive". This result supports the findings of the elicited constructs as well as the most common central study by Damanpour and Schneider (2006); this study has constructs across the grids in all three industries. This result found that the contextual factors have significantly different supports the studies by Sharma and Iyer (2006), and Sheth effects on the different phases of innovation adoption. Early and Sharma (2005) about relevance of the country context phase of CRM change include acdvities like assessing in affecting CRM strategies. These results also support the readiness of CRM change and designing of change studies which identified significance of institutional factors strategies. These activities are more concerned with tuning in affecting IT innovations and organizational changes (King to the environment and people's mindsets in the et al 1994 and Montealegre 1999). However, these early organization (Nilakant & Ramnarayan 2006). As both these studies emphasized national governments as "the most early phase activities involve more subjectivity, they may powerful institutions" (King et al 1994, p.162) and be more likely to get affected by the contextual factors. explained different ways in which local governments and Conclusions related institutions affect IT innovations and changes. The results of the qualitative content analysis suggests that This paper is a response to call for research on people issues government related regulatory and legal institutions are related to CRM change management (Boulding et al 2005) definitely important institutional factors, however, one must and qualitative aspects of CRM (Comer & Rogers 2004). It recognizes other equally important institutional factors that is the first study that addresses the effects of an emerging affect CRM change, such as, spread and importance of country context on CRM change management. Theoretical online professional or unprofessional social networks in the insights from the institutional theory highlight the country, marketing institutions like existence of good importance of political and subjective aspects of the context marketing, distribution and channel networks, educational along with technical and rational aspects of CRM and training institutes, credit-rating agencies, availability of implementation. Repertory grid analysis of the data collected reliable information and consultancy services, and market through semi-structured interviews provides further insight research institutions etc. in exploring the research questions. This study is important in explaining how the cultural and national context of an Another common finding of qualitative content analysis emerging country affects CRM change management. In and quantitative grid analysis is about existence of interaddition, from methodology point of view, it is one of the industry differences about effects of socio-cultural context rare studies in IS research that combines qualitative and on CRM change management. This finding draws attention quantitative approaches of analyzing repertory grid data. to the significance of considering effects of industry context. Different industry characteristics, regulations, level of competition, and adoption of IT innovation affect organization culture (Christensen & Gordon 1999) and it leads to relevance of socio-cultural factors. For example. Majority of studies in CRM and IS research contribute to the tradition of "best practice" without the contextual considerations. Few IS scholars (Bhatnagar & Odedra 1992;
2008, Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management

highly competitive and dynamic Indian telecom service providers' organization culture and CRM change management can be quite different from CRM change management in Indian public sector bank. Competitive industry requirements of telecom and retail industry may be important in nullifying the some of the socio-cultural effects of collectivism, feminism, or high power distance. More important socio-cultural factors affecting CRM change management in these industries are related to uncertainty avoidance and Confucius dynamism. Despite having some common findings among qualitative content analysis and quantitative grid analysis, it was interesting to understand that the most frequently elicited constructs of content analysis are not always the most common central constructs in quantitative grid analysis. For example, individualism is

50

Darshan Desai and Subrat Sahu

When people are less individualistic and competitive, challenging personal goals are not enough to drive the CRM change. In this kind of context, management generally makes the assumption that people are unwilling to change, and give them more incentives to reach more challenging goals, when in reality, people are not enough self confident and capable to meet the requirements of a change. At this time, focus, opportunity to learn, capability and confidence building is more important and must be combined with challenging personal goals. Less masculine culture increases importance of qualitative benefits and CRM matrices which measures them. In lower uncertainty avoidance culture, more careful assessment of CRM 'pain-points' is needed so that in the process of imitating best practices, organizations don't replace good judgments or right intuitive decisions with the lifeless information. More Confucius dynamism is refiected in the avoidance of elaborate and rapid changes; it increases importance of adaptive iterative technoeconomic ^^^ ^^ under-developed IT, and telecom infrastructures, the and and policies (Avgerou emerging country organizations may have highly fragmented approaches j u d i c i o u s 2001). Many customer data; organizations need to put more efforts and customization of organizations in investment for creating and maintaining a good quality technology. Elaborate emerging countries customer database. changes might have invest a lot in CRM more tendencies to and try to emulate successful CRM practices of developed revert back and require continuous monitoring even after the countries. Some of them are successful, while many others change. fail. The difference lies in the way CRM is deployed. The National context of India with comparatively less blind imitations of the strategies that worked in developed developed infrastructure and moderately developed country context can not give similar results in the emerging marketing institutions leads to higher importance of countries, and analysis and consideration of context is developing customer database, efficient utilization of such essential. database. This national context makes the CRM changes Managerial Implications more expensive in short term. However, the fast developing The countries don't have the same characteristics of cultural infra-structure in the country may reduce competitive barriers and structural context, therefore a blind imitation of and give better returns in future. Increasing spread and 'someone else's best practices make no sense in the different popularity of professional and unprofessional social networks context, A standardized, global CRM change strategies are has started playing important role in affecting a CRM neither appropriate nor will be successful. In the emerging change success. country context, high power distance culture may be Limitation and Direction for Future Research refiected in a very easy and illusive initiation of planned CRM change. In such cases, it would be very tempting to There are many layers of context. In this study, we focus on assume that forced adoption of CRM change or underground the effects of the socio-cultural and national context of India ways like threats of job-loss or punishable actions to get on CRM change management. Industry context and the things done would work. However, it seems easy, these organization context is equally relevant in affecting intraways don't work, CRM change is more complex than organizational dynamics of CRM change. Longitudinal case generally assumed. People can put poor quality or only 'just studies in a particular industry sectors are needed to assess essential' information in the system to avoid punishable the long term and combined impact of socio-cultural, action and may use another personal ways to keep their own national, industry and organization context on CRM change. records. In such cases, CRM system becomes burden and These kinds of case studies can also help in exploring interCRM change as such doesn't take place, even if it seems relations among different layers of a context. The study is that it is taking place. High power distance makes it more based on the data from the organizations that already difficult to come out of functional silos and adopt implemented CRM change or were planning for it. In India, participatory approaches in later phases. Early phases of financial institutions and telecom made initial investments CRM are very 'context sensitive' and involvement of people in CRM. Later, CRM was also picking up in retail, utilities, in these early phases is crucial to deal with the contextual healthcare, media, manufacturing and public sector in India.

Avgrou & Walsham 2000; Avgrou 2001) stressed the importance of considering context in the IS research. Analysis of the context is essential for professional practice. In the CRM literature, very little attention to social context of CRM implementation stimulated Corner and Rogers (2004) "to act as a 'shout' to those who pay more attention to mechanistic aspects of CRM implementation than the people who use them" (Corner & Rogers 2004; p-267). Surprisingly, even after well highlighted research gap and 'loud' calls for research, to our knowledge, very few CRM studies (Sharma & Iyer 2006; Mack, Mayo & Khare 2005) have focused on the effects of social context or culture. This study is a small step ahead to fill this well highlighted research gap. Avgerou (2001) identifies the institutional forces at different layers of context that affects sociotechnical change. This study is going beyond identifying the institutional forces, and explains how the institutional forces related to an emerging country context affects CRM change. Such consideration of the context is more relevant for countries which pursue IT planning by emulating other regions' successful

factors; this can help avoid unexpected resistance in later phases.

CRM Change Management in an Emerging Country Context: An Exploratory Study in India We did not examined issues relevant to other industries, manufacturing sector, small and medium size businesses and non-profit organizations. This is the first step in exploring the impact of a context on CRM change management. Much research needs to be done to examine political, subjective and qualitative aspects of CRM and role of different sociocultural and country contexts. There is a need to import theoretical insights from the literature on organizational change and institutional theory to the growing field of CRM. We also welcome further cross-cultural surveys to explore role of culture and context across different phases of CRM change.

51

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CRM Change Management in an Emerging Country Context: An Exploratory Study in India Appendix I: Repertory Grid of a Banking Industry Executive
Significant Construct Elements ^ Constructs 4<
Highly affected by power distance Highly affected hy Individualism Highly affected hy masculinity Highly affected hy uncertainty avoidance Highly affected hy dynamism Confucian el 4 4 4 5 3 e2 4 2 3 1 1 e3 4 2 4 1 4

e4
4

e5
4 3 2 3 4

e6
1 1 4 4 1 Not affected hy power distance Not affected hy Individualism Not affected hy masculinity Not affected hy uncertainty avoidance Not affected hy Confucian

3 4 3 3

Highly affected hy Infrastructural development Highly affected hy Institutional environment

Not affected hy Infrastructural development Not affected hy Institutional environment

Key Questions
1. 2, 3,

Should an emerging country organization adopt a flexible CRM change management approach for adapting to its context? How CRM change strategies and practices of an emerging country organization should adapt to its cultural context? How CRM change strategies and practices of an emerging country organization should adapt to its structural context?

Dr. Darshan Desai has done her Ph. D. from the Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedahad, India, and MBA from Gujarat University, India. She has taught several under graduate and graduate level courses in marketing, management, and management information systems. She used to work as a project leader with a non-government organization in Gujarat, India. She has a few publications as research papers in international joumals. Her current research interests include social media, value co-creation, customer relationship management, and change management. She can he reached at darshudesai@gmail.com.

Dr. Suhrat Sahu is an associate professor at Institute of Petroleum Management, Gandhinagar, India. He has done his Ph D from Utkal University and M.B.A from Berhampur University, India, He has over 7 years of teaching and 3 years of industry experience He has published research papers and articles in several Journals and magazines. He has presented and published papers in national and international conferences. He has conducted several corporate training programs for senior/middle level executives in both public and private sector undertakings. His current research interests include understanding customer behavior, relationship marketing and hrand management. He can he reached at Drof.subratsahu@pmail.com. 2008, Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management