Abstract
The role of sales has changed dramatically during the last two decades, with sales becoming increasingly strategic and encroaching on domains that traditionally belong to marketing. Many studies address the role of marketing in new product development (NPD) success, but research on the increasing importance of sales, its changing role and changing dynamics with marketing is scarce. This empirical study of 296 Hungarian firms addresses this gap and shows that the extent to which sales encroaches on marketing's tasks is influenced by interface relations, exchange processes and sales' capabilities. The effect of sales–marketing encroachment on NPD financial success is partially mediated by customer involvement, while its effect on market success is fully mediated by customer involvement. These findings suggest that firms may improve their NPD financial performance by letting sales encroach on marketing tasks, but need to establish customer co-creation initiatives to benefit from sales–marketing encroachment in terms of superior NPD performance compared with competitors.
Highlights
For several decades, the innovation literature emphasizes that successful innovation requires a clear marketing focus and a superior understanding of customer needs
The results show a positive relationship between interfunctional trust, interface formalization and actionability of information, and sales–marketing encroachment, while interfunctional rivalry has a negative relationship with sales–marketing encroachment, which support H1–4
Sales–marketing encroachment is positively related to new product development (NPD) financial performance, but has no direct significant relationship with new product success compared with competitors, confirming H7a and rejecting H7b
Summary
The innovation literature emphasizes that successful innovation requires a clear marketing focus and a superior understanding of customer needs. Previous studies of the sales–marketing interface focus on integration between the two departments (Guenzi & Troilo, 2006; Rouziès & Hulland, 2014; Rouziès et al, 2005), with several studies showing that the extent of integration between sales and marketing varies across firms (Biemans, Makovec-Brenčič, & Malshe, 2010; Homburg, Jensen, & Krohmer, 2008) In contrast to these studies, the present study investigates sales' encroachment on marketing's domain, its antecedents and its effect on NPD success, and contributes to the extant knowledge about sales' contribution to NPD. The article concludes with a discussion of the study's theoretical contributions, managerial implications, limitations and suggestions for future research
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