Abstract
Within industry, attention is being focused on effectively managing functional integration as a source for competitive advantage. Research suggests that the level of integration between different functions is positively related to organizational performance. The ability of a firm to identify and integrate the critical cross-functional decisions within the organization is central to the concept of functional integration as a source of competitive advantage. The following interrelated decisions between manufacturing and marketing have been identified as being strategically important: product development, process development, production planning, marketing planning, production scheduling, sales order acceptance. Although there has been a considerable amount of conceptual work in this area, there remains a significant shortage of empirical research. In addition, most of the conceptual studies represent the relationship between the level of decision integration between Manufacturing and Marketing/Sales and organizational performance as a simple unconditional association, in that increased decision integration leads to increased organizational performance. In this study, however, it was argued that the effect of decision integration on performance will depend on the firms business strategy and perceived envirorunental uncertainty. Several interesting contributions were obtained from this study. First and foremost, the results demonstrate that the effect of decision integration between Manufacturing and Marketing/Sales is much more complex than has been suggested previously. Second, the results indicate that Marketing/Sales and Manufacturing respondents have biased perceptions regarding the degree of decision integration for decision areas that they traditionally control; this has important implications for both researchers and managers who desire to assess the level of decision integration. Finally, this study found very different forms of moderating effects associated with decision integration for the two functional areas. Although, it is presently impossible to attribute these differences to a specific factor, some suggestions for a potential starting point for future research into this unusual phenomenon were presented. Overall, this study has challenged conventional thinking regarding the impact of decision integration between Manufacturing and Marketing/Sales on organizational performance.
O'Leary-Kelly, Scott William (1995). A contingency based on examination of the effects of integrating manufacturing and marketing decisions. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -1562497.