Market orientation, interdepartmental integration, and product developmentperformance

Various research studies have shown that a market orientation and interdepa rtmental integration can positively influence product development performan ce. Addressed in this article is whether market orientation and interdepart mental integration both equally influence product development performance, whether one of these constructs is more influential than the other. and whe ther such influence is dependent on the type of department being examined? Analyzing survey data from 156 marketing, manufacturing, and R&D managers, the tentative results suggest that a market orientation and interdepartment al integration correlate to improved product development and product manage ment performance in varying degrees across these three manager sets. It app ears that a positive relationship between market orientation and product de velopment performance is likely to be reflected by the marketing department , while marketing and manufacturing departments are likely to reflect a pos itive relationship between the general construct of market orientation and product management performance. Manufacturing managers also reflect a posit ive relationship between interdepartmental integration and product developm ent and product management performance. Further analyses involving the elem ents of a market orientation and interdepartmental integration find that a customer orientation appears important to performance in the case of market ing managers, and that collaboration is important to performance in the cas e of manufacturing managers. R&D managers did not reflect any statistically significant relationships between market orientation, interdepartmental in tegration, their constructs, and performance. These results should not be taken as refuting the claim of an important rel ationship between market orientation and product development performance, h owever. The present results refine our understanding of market orientation to consider department-specific effects, as well as temper the claims that implementing a market orientation will readily lead to improved product dev elopment performance across all departments in an organization. This may or may not be the case, depending on the focal department. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.