Most managers know that organizational culture influences the firm's economic consequences and recognize its important role in shaping product-innovation processes. Highly innovation-supportive cultures are credited wifh fostering teamwork and promoting risk-taking and creative actions that seem directly linked to effective newproduct development. Fostering highly innovation-supportive cultures in practice, however, is easier said than done. From the voices of participants in new-product development processes in high-technology organizations, we report what we have learned about the distinctive features of highly innovation-supportive cultures in productinnovation settings and propose how organizations might develop such cultures.

For more than a decade, researchers have explored the benefits of eliminating organizational boundaries between participants in the new product development (NPD) process. In turn, companies have revamped their NPD processes and organizational structures to deploy cross‐functional teams. These efforts toward interfunctional integration have produced a more responsive NPD process, but they don't represent the endgame in the quest for more effective NPD. What's next after the interfunctional walls come down? Pointing out that many high‐tech firms have already taken such steps as integrating customers and suppliers into the NPD process, Avan Jassawalla and Hemant Sashittal suggest that such firms need to go beyond integration and start thinking in terms of collaboration. Using information from a study of 10 high‐tech industrial firms, they identify factors that seem to increase cross‐functional collaboration in NPD, and they develop a conceptual framework that relates those factors to the level of cross‐functional collaboration achieved in the NPD process. Compared to integration, collaboration is described as a more complex, higher intensity cross‐functional linkage. In addition to high levels of integration, their definition of cross‐functional collaboration includes the sense of an equal stake in NPD outcomes, the absence of hidden agendas, and a willingness on the part of participants to understand and accept differences while remaining focused on the organization's common objectives. Collaboration also involves synergy—that is, the NPD outcomes exceed the sum of the capabilities of the individual participants in the NPD process. Their framework suggests that structural mechanisms such as cross‐functional teams can provide significant increases in NPD‐related interfunctional integration. However, high levels of integration do not necessarily equate to high levels of collaboration. Characteristics of the organization and the participants also affect the level of collaboration. For example, achieving a high level of collaboration depends on participants who contribute an openness to change, a willingness to cooperate, and a high level of trust. Their framework also points to key organizational factors that affect the level of collaboration—for example, the priority that senior management gives to NPD and the level of autonomy afforded to participants in the NPD process.

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A key reason for the return of expatriates before the official end of their foreign assignment is the uncertainty and frustration resulting from poor cross-cultural adaptation. The literature provides this general, normative view without much to say about the interpersonal conflict expatriates experience in the workplace abroad caused by cultural differences. Our exploratory study finds that conflicts with co-workers in host countries occur frequently causing high stress and discomfort, and provides three specific sources of conflict as recounted by sample managers. The implications of our findings include: selecting expatriate managers with high emotional intelligence, providing extensive pre-departure cultural training that consists not only of cultural facts but also interpersonal skills such as active listening, conflict management, and ethical reasoning, utilizing sensitivity training techniques to better prepare managers for new situations, and sending the expatriate on one or two pre-sojourn visits to familiarize themselves with the host culture and workplace norms even before the actual expatriate assignment begins. An additional implication is training the host-country workers, particularly those who will work most closely with the expatriate manager, on home country cultural beliefs and workplace norms. We aim to stimulate managerial thinking and further research on the workplace conflicts that challenge expatriates managers.When expatriate managers return before the official completion of their overseas assignments, the stress and low job-satisfaction resulting from culture shock is often blamed (Newman et al., 1978). Many who stay until completion also reportedly struggle with cross-cultural adaptation and operate at decreased capacity (Cavusgil et al., 1992). This results in lowered return on investment for the firm, and lowered self-esteem and slower career development for the expatriate (Yavas and Bodur, 1999). Why does this happen? From what is currently written, one of the principal causes seems to be the inability of expatriate managers to deal with cross-cultural adaptation -a broad term that includes issues related to differences in culture and language, living conditions, uprooting spouses and families, and working harmoniously with co-workers with different cultural backgrounds (Yavas and Bodur, 1999).Our recent study of expatriates suggests that while a host of cross-cultural issues are important, none is more important than issues of interpersonal conflict arising from cultural differences. The general notions in the literature about the impact of cross-cultural adaptation fail to reflect this reality.

Although multinational corporations (MNCs) invest considerable resources in sending managers on foreign assignments, too many managers report dissatisfaction with their postrepatriation careers, and a signifi cant percentage leave the fi rm within a year. This failure to harness learning and develop a cadre of globally trained managers raises questions about the current objectives and strategies that drive the investment in expatriation. A study of managers who had recently completed their expatriate assignment points to underorganized home offi ce operations, poorly defi ned mentor roles, and large gaps between managers' expectations and reality as key contributors to the problem. This paper calls for a strategic orientation toward managing the expatriate function and proposes a comprehensive confi guration of processes, systems, and structures necessary for implementing new strategies for developing the next generation of globally trained managers.

The process by which managers implement marketing plans in smaller industrial organizations has yet to be conceptualized in ways that can spur theoretical development or speak to the practical realities of managers from this growing, important segment of American industry. This article, based on an exploratory study of marketing strategy processes in 50 smaller, entrepreneurial organizations develops a framework to stimulate thinking and an inventory of propositions for future testing. The study finds market planning and implementation inextricably linked. Marketing implementation emerges as an organization's adaptive response to day-to-day market events that is rarely scripted by plans and as a process that involves purposeful actions and improvisations as much as stopgap actions and firefights. The nature and extent of implementation-related improvisations appear to directly affect a firm's market orientation, rate of growth, and strategic effectiveness.