Cross-Functional Influence in New Product Development : A Study of Marketing and R&D Interface

Abstract

As the marketing perception within the organization is getting more deliberation (Kohli and Jaworski 1990) researchers are giving substantial attention toward studying the nature of working relationships among Marketing Personnel and other functional specialists. Among these working relationships importance is given to the significant ones that are cross-functional relationships and most importantly the critical interface occurs between the Marketing department and technical oriented departments of Engineering, Manufacturing and R&D during the activities of new product development (NPD) (Souder 1981; Gupta and Wilemon 1985), this interface has been the focus of many studies explorating the quality of relationship and its effect inflict on the success of new product development. (Souder 1981, 1988; Shaw 1998) studied that NPD is challenging in nature as being a key corporate activity as it outcome in the development of poor relationship between functions and unsuccessful products. Basic intend of this thesis is to present a study and to develop a better understanding of effective cross-functional relationships and interpersonal political behaviors between Marketing Personnel and technically trained counterparts and also study the moderation of trust and its effect on their relationship.