Conceptualizing CRM as an Interacting Resource

Abstract

This chapter reconnects directly to Chapter 3, where we discussed IT from an organizational point of view and identified the factors that favor the embedding of IT systems in organizations. This chapter now applies those concepts to CRM systems, viewed as specific types of IT systems, but also expands the organizational perspective on IT to embrace inter-organizational effects. After introducing a new view of CRM as a socio-technical resource interacting with other resources (Section 5.1), this chapter presents the “resource interaction” perspective, an alternative approach to investigating innovation and strategy, as well as technology and business development (Section 5.2). The main analytical model belonging to this perspective, the 4Rs model, is introduced in Section 5.3, paving the way for understanding the phenomenon of “resource embeddedness” (Section 5.4). The chapter continues by applying the “resource interaction” perspective to CRM (Section 5.5.), which will help us frame the intra- and inter-organizational effects deriving from the embedding of CRM systems (Section 5.6).