英语论文网

Whether intentional or not, Marketing literature has not been explicit about terminology characterizing initiatives between functions within a company. As will be discussed, the intermingling of these terms poses knowledge creation and knowledge management implications for marketing management. A continuum of interfunctional initiatives, anchored on one end by functional initiatives, cross-functional initiatives on the other end, and multifunctional initiatives as a middle ground, is proposed to underlie a common lexicon for use in future marketing management research. Marketing literature has attended to calls for interacting and collaborating with other functional areas (Kahn and Mentzer 1998; Wind 1981). Many of these calls have emerged from the domain of the marketing-research and development interface for the purpose of improving innovation performance (Fisher, Maltz, and Jaworski 1997; Griffin and Hauser 1996; Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon 1986; Souder 1987). Similar calls have emerged from the interfaces of marketing-logistics (Ellinger, Daugherty, and Keller 2000; Murphy and Poist 1992), marketingmanufacturing (Kahn and Mentzer 1994; Parente 1998; St. John and Hall 1991), and marketing-finance (See 2006) to manifest improved supply chain, operations, and financial performance, respectively. Narver and Slater's (1990) model of market orientation, where interfunctional coordination explicitly represents a core element for market orientation, has further drawn attention to the need for marketing managers to interact and collaborate with more than just marketing personnel. Intentional or not, the terms cross-functional, interfunctional, and multifunctional appear to be regularly intermingled in marketing literature. Such intermingling of terminology may not seem an issue, but the slight nuances between these terms pose keen implications for precise categorization of interfunctional initiatives and marketing management implications stemming from such initiatives. As will be discussed, multifunctional and cross-functional should be viewed as representing different points on a continuum exemplifying the nature of group relationships, with the broader term interfunctional employed to generically describe any initiative that involves multiple groups. The intent in proposing and clarifying these terminologies is to establish a common lexicon for future study by marketing researchers. A second intent is to discuss how various initiatives being undertaken by company functions can reflect functional, multifunctional, or cross-functional characteristics and, in turn, pose unique knowledge creation and knowledge management implications for marketing managers. DEPARTMENTS AND FUNCTIONS Marketing literature has placed a major emphasis on teams and paid less attention to the distinction between functions and departments. Teams represent temporary mechanisms for integrating personnel and typically focus on achieving a particular objective or goal (Sarin and Mahajan 2001). Because teams can transcend the organizational structure, they are an increasingly popular mechanism for achieving cooperation and integration between groups, especially in the case of new product development (Sarin and Mahajan 2001). Amid the many studies on teams, literature has described teams as both interfunctional and interdepartmental in nature. Unfortunately, the difference between interfunctional and interdepartmental terminology is not readily explained. Functions and