Investigating the manufacturing-marketing interface in new product development:: does context affect the strength of relationships?

This study explores the nature of the relationships characterizing the marketing-manufacturing interface in new product development (NPD). Four constructs are examined: (1) marketing's knowledge of manufacturing; (2) manufacturing's evaluation of marketing communication; (3) marketing-manufacturing integration; and (4) marketing-manufacturing relationship quality. Knowledge and communication are represented as antecedents of relationship quality and integration in a structural equations model (SEM). All relationships are posited to be positive, and we test whether they are moderated by (1) high versus low environmental uncertainty, and by (2) a high versus low rate of new product introduction as compared to competitors. In all cases but low uncertainty, the majority of structural paths are positive. Nevertheless, a strong, positive link exists between knowledge and integration in the low uncertainty case. Overall, we find that the more marketing knows about manufacturing and the more marketing is able to communicate credibly with manufacturing, better relationships and functional relationships will result with a variety of contingencies notwithstanding. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.