**1. Introduction**

Consumer packaged goods industries deploy innovation in order to open new streams of revenue, to stay ahead of competitors and to enhance brand equity. Companies facing a turbulent and hyper-competitive environment require effective management of cross-functional relationships, to maintain their competitive advantage in the marketplace [1, 2].

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Extant research of the effectiveness of cross-functional integration in new product development has focused on goal incongruity among marketing, research and development (R&D) and manufacturing, perceived R&D and marketing conflicts or interpersonal trust [3, 4] inter alia. More recently, Wiebmeier et al. [5] introduced the relevance of sales to unlock synergies during the innovation process and the customer relationship improvement [6].

The model was developed building on the theoretical constructs of the multidimensional model drawn by Homburg et al. [11] and the foundations considered by Massey and Kyriazis

Drivers of Innovation Deployment Affecting the Marketing and Sales Relationship

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The dependent variable, PRE, is the degree to which sales and marketing managers perceive that the relationship is effective and satisfying in achieving organizational objectives [19]. The construct was adapted from both Ruekert and Walker [20] and Homburg et al.[11]. In spite of being a psychosocial outcome, it can be viewed as a precursor to objective outcomes like product innovation performance, superior value creation or market share growth [7, 21].

Extant literature proposes that the amount and difficulty of communication are important aspects of cross-functional interaction, associated with an improved relationship commitment

Given the established importance of cross-functional communication to achieve functional coordination during NPD (e.g., see [20, 23]), we explore two communication dimensions: amount of communication and communication quality. Communication amount (CA) is defined as the intensity of information flow among managers via e-mails, telephone, formal or ad-hoc meetings and reports [20]. Communication quality (CQ)—adapted from Fisher et al. (in Ref. [23]) and Homburg et al. (in Ref. [11])—is defined as the extent to which communication between sales and marketing managers is a bidirectional process of credible, relevant, useful and on-time provided information for a flawless NPD. Massey and Kyriazis [3] found a strong effect of communication frequency and bidirectional communication (a key

H1 Communication amount is positively related to communication quality between sales and

Extant literature confirmed the importance of communication frequency to promote a more effective relationship between marketing and other departments, through informal conversa-

H2 Communication amount is positively related to the perceived relationship effectiveness

Sales and marketing managers perceive their relationship to be effective if both of them achieve the innovation deployment targets. Fisher et al. (in Ref. [23]) found a positive link between bidirectional communication and the perceived marketing-engineering relationship effectiveness during the innovation process. This effect was confirmed by Massey and

H3 Communication quality is positively associated with the perceived relationship effective-

Kyriazis ([3] between R&D and marketing managers). We therefore hypothesize that:

**2.1. Perceived effectiveness of the sales-marketing relationship (PRE)**

**2.2. The inter-functional communication role (CA and CQ)**

[3] for the marketing and R&D interface.

and perceived justice [12, 20, 22].

marketing managers.

variable of communication quality). Therefore:

tion and efficient meetings [3, 23, 24].

between sales and marketing managers.

ness between sales and marketing managers.

We therefore hypothesize that:

The importance of marketing and sales interface has been consistently reported as a key crossfunctional interface to enhance business performance and to create superior customer value (e.g., see [1, 7–9]).

In highly innovative consumer packaged goods companies, business performance is embedded with innovation deployment success and measured by relative market share, sales, profitability and objective compliance [10].

The literature highlights key factors that can either contribute to or hamper the coordinated and collaborative sales-marketing interface [1, 11, 12] inter alia. These studies are based on samples from a specific context of developed economies like the United States, Australia, New Zealand and countries from the European Union, while emerging markets remain underexplored [13–15]. This chapter, instead, studies for the first time the nature of the sales-marketing cross-functional relationship and those factors that contribute to the interface relationship in order to gain in new product deployment (NPD) effectiveness in the six South American countries of a consumer packaged goods global company.

The chapter is organized as follows: after a review of the literature, a theoretical model is developed, followed by the methodology and results' presentation. Finally, conclusions, management implications and limitations are presented.
