The Relationship of CPA Firm's Characteristics and Relationship Marketing Orientation in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Developing and cultivating relationships is a common preoccupation and a form of social investment in Chinese society. Because of the emphasis on differentiated relationships, Chinese seems to have a much stronger tendency to divide people into categories and treat them accordingly. Especially, professional services which require closed relationship and highly personal contacts will need to maintain good relationship marketing with its clients. The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) firms' characteristics on Relationship Marketing Orientation (RMO) of professional staffs employed in Taiwan. The proposed hypotheses are tested in Taiwan CPA professional firm where long-term relationships are frequent with the profitable clients. The hypotheses were evaluated using an ANOVA analysis, which associates relationship marketing activities such as bonding, empathy, reciprocity, trust, communication, shared value, commitment with CPA firm's sizes, staffs' educational levels as well as their rank characteristics. The results show that that some RMO factors are strongly associated with CPA firm 's characteristics. Furthermore, findings of the study provide public professionals with key information that would assist their retaining, promoting and developing long-term relationships with their customers in traditional Chinese society. INTRODUCTION Several studies on services marketing have suggested that in order to acquire and maintain a competitive edge, service organizations should develop long-term relationships with their customers (Gronroos, 1994; Berry, 1995). A majority of relationship marketing orientation studies have been undertaken in the West. However, according to Confucianism, an individual is fundamentally a social or relational being. Developing and cultivating relationships is a common preoccupation and a form of social investment in China (Sin, et. ah, 2002). Because of the emphasis on differentiated relationships, Chinese seems to have a much stronger tendency to divide people into categories and treat them accordingly. That tendency to treat people differentially on the basis of one's relationship with them explains why having close relationship is of such importance in Chinese society (Tse, et. ah, 2003; Ganesan, 1994). Good marketing relationships are difficult for competitors to imitate, especially for professional services such as Certificated Public Accountants (CPAs), lawyers, medical doctors, because such relationships require closed relationship and personal contacts with clients. Public accountants have accepted that customer retention is even more profitable than customer attraction and we can observe the interest of firms in adopting relationship marketing principles and designing strategies to develop long-lasting relationships with profitable customers. The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of relationship marketing concepts to Taiwan CPA firms. Determining RMO factors of these professional staffs and developing strategies to maintain good relationship with clients could empower CPA firm to assume an active role in performing their auditing and accounting service effectively and efficiently. A number of researchers have examined relationship between the firm characteristics (such as age, educational level and ranking level) and job satisfaction (Mason, 1995). But seldom have focused on the relationship between the CPA firm's characteristics and relationship marketing orientation especially discussed about the culture difference between West and East. The next section of this study is to re-examine the applicability of Tse, et. al. (2003) relationship marketing within Taiwan professional services. The third section is to empirically test the hypothesized relationship between RMO and CPA firm's characteristics. The fourth section presents the research methodology, including a delineation of the measurement we use to test the hypotheses. …