Organizational structure and specialized marketing capabilities in SMEs

Purpose - This paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model of organizational structure design that incorporates some factors influencing strategy implementation. The research also aims to consider inter-functionality in new product development (NPD) processes and marketing decisions, measured from the dispersion of these activities among functional areas. Design/methodology/approach - The research was conducted across 424 small and medium-sized furniture manufacturing companies. In total, eight hypotheses were proposed and tested using structural equation modeling. Findings - Most important among the study's findings was that inter-firm relationships and inter-functional processes are relevant for the study of organizational structure design. It was found that the dispersion of the new product development process and of marketing decisions exert a positive influence on architectural marketing capabilities. The results showed that the dispersion of NPD processes and marketing decisions influence the development of marketing capabilities only in those companies with inter-firm relationships. The paper also found that inter-firm design did not affect the impact of the relationship between the dispersion of marketing decisions and NPD process on specialized capabilities. Research limitations/implications - The study focuses research on Brazilian small to medium-sized furniture enterprises and could have single-source bias in its data collection process. Practical implications - The findings provide insights into ways of integrating structures. It is observed that a higher integration of areas in marketing decisions is related to the dispersion of the NPD process. Given that dispersion in NPD is a disseminated practice, it is found that higher dispersion in marketing activities has an impact on product development. Originality/value - The paper's findings confirm the influence of organizational design on the development of planning capabilities and on the implementation of marketing strategies.