The role of manufacturing and marketing managers in strategy development -Lessons from three companies

According to researchers and managers, there is a lack of agreement between marketing and manufacturing managers on critical strategic issues. However , most of the literature on the subject is anecdotal and little formal empi rical research has been done. Three companies are investigated to study the extent of agreement/disagreement between manufacturing and marketing manag ers on strategy content and process. A novel method permits the study of ag reement between the two different Junctional managers on the process of dev eloping strategy. The findings consistently show that manufacturing manager s operate under a wider range of strategic priorities than marketing manage rs, and that manufacturing managers Participate less than marketing manager s in the strategy development process. Further, both marketing and manufact uring managers show higher involvement in the strategy development process in the latter stages of the Hayes and Wheelwright four-stage model of manuf acturing's strategic role.