Interfunctional conflict, conflict resolution styles, and new product success: A four-culture comparison

This paper develops a model relating innovation success to the level of interfunctional conflict and conflict resolution methods. The model suggests a concave relationship between performance and the level of interfunctional conflict among marketing, R&D, and manufacturing. It also conjectures that both national culture and the level of interfunctional conflict influence the effectiveness of different conflict resolution methods.-An empirical test of the proposed framework involves a survey of 968 marketing managers from Japan, I-long Kong, the United States, and Great Britain. The results provide general support for the model's predictions and reveal several significant cross-national differences.