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The first of several articles on the temporal development of intra‐firm marketing organizations, relates how Hungary and Poland have progressed strongly towards the free market economic system. However, social and political opposition is now threatening further rapid reform. Moreover, infrastructure deficiencies and managerial problems are constraining effective marketing. Outdated production orientation is inhibiting the adoption of marketing orientation in the state sector while firm smallness is limiting managerial specialization in the private sector. Concludes, from a mail survey of 1,786 Hungarian and Polish firms, that most existing organizations are inadequate. Marketing orientation is extensive in Hungary but sparse in Poland. Although companies adapt flexibly to market changes and assign marketing responsibility to chief executives, most do not have specialist marketing departments. In the minority of cases where specialist departments do exist, they do not have inferior status to other functions although neither are they closely integrated with them.

This paper aims to discuss the challenge for the classical idea of professionalism in understanding the Chinese software engineering industry after giving a close insight into the development of this industry as well as individual engineers with a psycho‐societal perspective.

The study starts with the general review of the sociological concept of profession, professional and specialization of knowledge. Together with revealing the critical challenge from the empirical field of software engineering industry regarding its professionalization, a critique of the neglect of subjective agency in classical conception of professionalism in sociology theory and methodology is set out.

A case study with interpretation of the subject's continuously developing identification with their specialization in knowledge and occupation from their narration of career experience reveals the dynamics in this development process relating to individual, social practice and societal factors.

This paper contributes to empirical research of analyzing the professionalization process of software engineering and software engineers in relation to the concept of professionalism, and it contributes theoretically by discussing the challenge of this process to the development of professionalism within this highly knowledge‐based industry in a Chinese societal context.

Extensive research has been undertaken into the proposition that certain organisational arrangements and working methods (e.g. centralisation, functional specialisation, multi‐disciplinary teamworking and training, organisation‐wide reward systems) influence the levels of dysfunctional conflict in businesses. The present study assessed the relevance of these variables for explaining the existence of conflict between marketing and other departments within non‐profit organisations. Additionally the investigation examined the role of “psychological distance” (a construct borrowed from the international marketing literature) as a possible determinant of conflict. A total of 148 marketing managers of large UK charities completed a questionnaire exploring these matters. It emerged that several of the factors known to mitigate dysfunctional conflict in the commercial world exerted similar effects in many of the sample charities. Psychological distance was significantly associated with both the presence of dysfunctional conflict within a charity and the manners whereby conflict resulted in adverse organisational consequences.

I. INTRODUCTION This study attempts to extend and expand previous research conducted by the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde on the adoption and diffusion of industrial products.

In new product development (NPD), the early phase is considered to be one of the greatest opportunities for improving the overall process, where intensive collaboration between marketing and R&D is essential. Nevertheless, previous studies indicate the difficulties of creating a thorough concept during the early phase. This paper aims to contribute to understanding why concept creation is difficult during the early phase of NPD.

This case study involves a single company, and is based on a combination of participant observations and interviews. The participant observations are based on an ethnographic method and the interviews on a hermeneutic approach.

The findings suggest that the difficulties in creating a strong concept during the early phase are related to the negative conflicts arising between marketing and R&D. The underlying cause of such conflicts can further be related to the strong interdependencies existing between the functions. Achieving a better understanding of the interdependencies and the different functional views may reduce the negative conflicts which otherwise tend to become barriers to the far‐reaching integration needed to develop a thorough concept.

As this study is based on a single case, further research is needed in this field in other industries.

Cooperation between functions, as advised in the literature, is not enough and needs to be expanded to cover perspective making and perspective taking in order to move away from the many non‐productive conflicts arising during the early phase as well as create thorough concepts.

This paper bridges different bodies of theories related to concept creation and identifies a gap in the existing theories concerning NPD and the early phase.

Reports exploratory research focusing on this neglected area based on semi‐structured interviews with R&D and marketing managers of major international pharmaceutical companies. Major findings include the fact that few of the responding companies integrate marketing and R&D in the formulation of product development strategy which is a considerable source of resentment between the marketing and R&D functions. Also, whilst the move from functional specialisation to cross‐functional therapeutic teams is effective in focusing NPD activity and delivering projects on time, they ignore innovative opportunities that are not directly related to the project. External specialist companies are an increasingly important source of innovation and the ability to manage them effectively is essential for maintaining competitive advantage in the pharmaceutical industry.

According to community policing advocates, police agencies should implement a variety of important organizational changes. These changes are supposed to occur in a number of different substantive domains, including the culture, behavior, and structure of police organizations. This paper examines the evidence for change in just one of these domains: formal organizational structure. Based on concepts derived from organization theory, and using data from six different data sets, the paper explores whether the structures of US police organizations changed during the 1990s. Overall, it finds mixed evidence. Some changes have occurred in the direction encouraged by community policing reformers, some changes have occurred in the opposite direction, and some changes have not occurred at all.

Cross-functional integration has been an important factor for manufacturing firms' performance outcomes. The study aims to expand previous research by investigating the moderating role of goal-based incentive systems in the relationship between cross-functional integration and competitive performance.

Based on multi-source data from 269 manufacturing firms around the world, regression analysis is used to test the proposed research model.

The authors' findings suggest that cross-functional integration enhances manufacturers' innovation and operational performance. Moreover, cross-functional integration has a stronger impact on operational performance when firms implement a well-designed goal-based incentive system. However, the authors find that the goal-based incentive system does not moderate the relationship between cross-functional integration and innovation performance.

The study, by investigating the fit between goal-based incentive systems and cross-functional integration, provides practical insights into the ways that firms apply cross-functional integration and goal-based incentive systems to enhance competitive performance.