Cross-Functional Working Relationships in Marketing

Marketing managers spend a large part of their day interacting with superiors, subordinates, and peers from other functional units in the organization. To effectively serve as an advocate for the consumer at various levels of the hierarchy and across functions, the marketing manager must initiate, develop, nurture, and sustain a network of relationships with multiple constituencies within the firm. Special relationship skills are required in managing this cross-functional exchange network and in mobilizing support for a particular strategy course. Indeed, the reputational effectiveness of marketing managers (and of marketing units) rests on their ability to respond to the needs and demands of members of this internal exchange network. Because the needs of the involved constituent groups often conflict, a set of adaptive processes characterize exchange relations across functions. The central purpose of this commentary is to review promising conceptual perspectives and to suggest several lines of research that might deepen our understanding of the challenging interfunctional role that marketing managers assume in the firm.