Institut für Marktorientierte UnternehmensführungIn seiner Arbeit wird das IMU durch einen Partnerkreis unterstützt. Diesem gehören renommierte Wissenschaftler und Manager in leitenden Positionen an:

The literature is divided on whether differences between the thought worlds of marketing and sales are deleterious or beneficial. This paper empirically investigates various facets of thought world differences and their effects on various outcomes. It confirms that differences generally hamper the cooperation between marketing and sales which leads to a lower market performance of the business unit. However, some facets of thought world differences enhance the market performance of the business through a direct effect that outweighs the negative effect mediated by the quality of marketing and sales cooperation: Market performance is enhanced if one side plays the customers' advocate while the other plays the products' advocate. Market performance is also enhanced if one side plays the advocate of short-term considerations while the other plays the advocate of long-term considerations. In contrast, differences between marketing and sales in regard to product knowledge and interpersonal skills are deleterious to market performance. Thus, the kind of difference makes a difference.

While there is a significant amount of research on determinants of selling effectiveness for individual salespeople, there is a surprising lack of study of factors that affect selling effectiveness in team-selling situations. The authors focus on the context of key account management (KAM) and develop a conceptual model of factors that affect KAM effectiveness. They test hypotheses with data from 385 firms using structural equation modeling and find that firms should seek to build esprit de corps among those involved in KAM, should proactively initiate activities with key accounts and do these activities more intensively, should ensure that key account managers have access to key resources within the marketing and sales organization, and should involve top managers of the firm.

Little is known about the interface between separate marketing units and sales units. This article develops a multidimensional model of the marketing and sales interface. The model integrates a broad range of conceptual domains, including information sharing, structural linkages, power, orientations, and knowledge of marketing and sales. The authors empirically explore the conceptual model through a cross-industry study of 337 European Union-based companies. They identify five empirical archetypes of the marketing and sales interface. The taxonomy shows that the role and characteristics of marketing and sales vary a great deal. This finding challenges existing stereotypes about marketing and sales. Finally, the article explores organizational outcomes of the five configurations. The findings suggest that the most successful configurations are characterized by strong structural linkages between marketing and sales and a high extent of market knowledge in marketing.

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