Marketing's integration with R&D and manufacturing: A cross-regional analysis

With the emergence of global teams, marketing managers are not only confronted with interdepartmental issues, but cultural issues as well. As yet, most literature has focused on interdepartmental integration within a single-country company, indicating that integration via interaction and collaboration improves performance success, The question is whether this framework holds in a global context between marketing, R&D, and manufacturing. A research study of 500 marketing, manufacturing, and R&D managers was undertaken to address this question and determine the influences that interaction and collaboration may have on performance across U.S., European, and Far Eastern companies. Research further compared the levels of interaction and collaboration used by different departments across these three regions. Findings suggest that a global framework may exist, which highlights collaboration and, to a lesser degree, interaction as factors in performance success. Findings also suggest that there may be certain culturally specific approaches for managing interdepartmental relationships.