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This paper aims to improve marketing managers’ use of information from sales. The authors propose and empirically test the link between cross-functional trust and marketing’s use of information from sales, and whether this effect is contingent on marketing’s power within the firm.

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 338 large-scale Hungarian firms. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap procedures were used to test the hypotheses.

The effect of cross-functional trust on marketing managers’ use of sales information is fully mediated by sales–marketing integration and marketing’s perception of information quality. However, the power of marketing within the firm moderates this mediating relationship.

This paper provides empirical evidence concerning the mediating mechanisms of transferring cross-functional trust to marketing’s successful use of information from sales. The findings imply that cross-functional trust can improve marketing managers’ use of sales information of firms with powerful marketing units by facilitating integration, whereas it can improve the use of sales information of firms with low marketing power by improving marketing managers’ perception of information quality from sales.

This is the first study that models and empirically investigates marketing managers’ use of information collected by sales. The current study conceptually links and advances extant knowledge on the literatures on the sales–marketing interface and utilization of market information at the individual level and increases the understanding of how cross-functional trust contributes to information use under different contingencies of marketing power.

Building on prior research in interactions between sales and marketing departments, the purpose of this paper is to investigate departmental alignment among professional hockey teams. By using a single industry sample, the authors are able to identify high and low performers, along with structural antecedents that lead to higher alignment (Rouse and Daellenbach, 1999). Expiring inventory, customer knowledge, and volatile demand enhance the need for alignment and suggest opportunities for innovative mechanisms to share information among departments (Mullin et al., 2007).

Through the usage of Kotler et al.’s (2006) survey instrument, the authors survey NHL Vice Presidents of sales and marketing to assess levels of structural alignment. The authors further explores strategies for alignment through qualitative interviews of select team executives.

The authors find examples of high alignment, achieved through structural elements of proximity, cross-functional tasks, financial incentives, and new technologies. The qualitative interviews provide insight into how organizations attempt to create high levels of alignment.

These results help advance the literature by identifying high performers and going inside organizations for the source of a competitive advantage, thus following Rouse and Dallenbach’s (1999) approach for theory development. The authors also contributes by identifying strategies for practitioners to apply as they attempt to design optimal work structures.

Despite the necessity of close integration between marketing and sales, managers report less than satisfactory results in this area. This paper aims to examine what keeps the two functions apart. It proposes going beyond surface level behavior to examine the different sub‐cultural mental frames that characterize the two functions.

A total of 44 salespeople and marketers across four different organizations in different industries were interviewed.

The research finds that conflicts between marketing and sales are driven by differences in beliefs about the valid scope and focus of activity, time focus, valid sources of knowledge, differences in perceived status, and the relationship to the business environment.

Managers need to focus on removing implied status barriers between sales and marketing, provide sales with a strategic voice, and attend to structural issues that drive the two functions apart.

Research on the sales‐marketing interface remains scarce. The paper examines this from a cultural point of view and identifies a number of basic cultural frames that explain behavioral differences between the two functions. Critically, it also identifies significant points of difference on which to build greater understanding between the two functions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of digital transformation on the intersection of marketing and sales departments.

This area has received little attention in academic literature while considerable amount of research exists surrounding the marketing and sales integration, the influence of the trend of digital transformation on both departments and how it affects their collaboration is not investigated in-depth and is therefore studied by qualitative research via semi-structured interviews in six German organizations.

By considering the findings the collaboration between the marketing and sales departments in German organizations is perceived as good. However, generation-related conflicts occur due to different demographic structures of employees. The study provides evidence that the digital transformation affects the marketing and sales integration and thus, the overall organizational performance.

Moreover, it is crucial that organizations face the challenges that occur in terms of interdepartmental relationships and be aware of the huge potentials which arise due to digital transformation to improve the marketing and sales collaboration.

The study explores structural devices designed to enhance collaboration between sales and marketing groups. The paper aims to develop a conceptual framework of how such integrative devices link to higher levels of sales‐marketing collaboration and also to higher levels of business performance.

A total of 20 in‐depth interviews and a review of the literature are used to examine the nature and effects of sales‐marketing integrative devices in UK consumer packaged goods firms.

The study identifies two main types of integrative device in operation: trade marketing and category management. The exploratory interviews highlight how these two types of integrative device operate, respectively, at operational and strategic levels. All of the organisations were found to operate some kind of integrative device. However, the organisations studied manifest different levels of collaboration between sales and marketing groups. The conclusion drawn from this and subsequently included in the conceptual framework is that it is the effectiveness of integrative devices, rather than their mere existence, that differentiates between higher and lower levels of sales‐marketing collaboration.

The effectiveness of sales‐marketing integrative devices appears to have positive effects for collaborative sales‐marketing intergroup relations. The results therefore support the development and effective use of such devices to enhance collaborative relations between sales and marketing.

This study reveals the importance and dimensions of effective sales‐marketing integrative devices and uses in‐depth interviews to support the development of a conceptual framework for future empirical testing. Specific hypotheses to test are developed, together with suggestions regarding the measurement of constructs.

The purpose of this study is to provide a contextualized understanding of how business-to-business (B2B) firms use the sales development function for efficient and effective lead funnel management.

The authors adopted a qualitative field-study approach and interviewed 13 people from eight firms. While software as a service (SaaS) firms are the most prevalent application context for the sales development function, the authors also included respondents from non-SaaS firms to develop an in-depth understanding of the contextualized nature of the sales development process.

Sales development processes can be applied in outbound prospect-focused, outbound account-based, inbound prospect-focused and inbound account-based lead management contexts. The sales development processes of lead research, engagement and handover vary depending on the nature of the lead management context. These processes are supported by the appropriate design of organizational, technological and people platforms.

The authors explain how sales development as a form of inside sales can support effective lead funnel management in B2B firms through technology-enabled lead research and nurture processes designed to prepare customers for meaningful conversations with field sales.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus purely on the sales development function as a form of inside sales. They explain how the sales development processes relating to lead research, engagement and handover are conducted in four distinct application contexts to qualify leads for the outside salesforce.

The study seeks to explore the antecedents and implications of collaboration between sales and marketing and further to identify whether there are benefits in terms of business performance of improving collaboration between sales and marketing.

Three exploratory case studies and a review of the literature are used to examine the antecedents to collaboration between sales and marketing. The case studies allow this fuzzy and undefined area to be clarified and existing theories to be empirically tested.

The study identifies that there are three types of factor influencing collaboration between sales and marketing: integrators, facilitators, and management attitudes towards coordination. The exploratory case studies establish that senior management plays a pivotal role in creating and improving collaboration between sales and marketing, and that there is a positive correlation between collaboration between sales and marketing, and improved business performance.

The limitations of this study are that it is qualitative in nature and the conceptual framework needs be tested through a large‐scale survey. In addition, the study considers only large UK organisations and, therefore, future research should consider expanding the study to overseas organisations.

There appears to be an established relationship between the level of collaboration between sales and marketing and business performance. Further, the attitude of senior managers to improving coordination is critical to influencing collaboration between sales and marketing.

This study contends that sales and marketing need to collaborate rather than integrate and uses exploratory case studies to support the development of the framework.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the importance of good coordination between marketing and sales. It aims to examine the research conducted to date, the area of marketing and sales integration and provide guidance to help integrate these functional areas better in industrial marketing firms. The paper seeks to develop a research agenda to continue this research.

A total of 21 interviews were collected through the use of qualitative research techniques and intensive interviews. The interactions between marketing and sales were modeled for during the marketing management process and the sales management process.

More extensive sample surveys need to be conducted. Exploratory findings should be tested and possible situational differences identified.

Several required actions were identified for management. These fall into three categories: organizational design; communication; and human resources management. The primary suggestions are to make sure: product management functions effectively as a coordination mechanism; there is central coordination; the organizational structure is customer‐centric; communication is timely and of high quality; and everyone in sales and marketing has an appreciation of the other role.

The research provides one of the earliest efforts to examine this important area from an empirical perspective and provide guidance to marketing and sales managers.

Rising expectations for exceptional customer experiences demand strategic amalgamation of cross-functional, customer-focused teams (marketing/sales/service departments). However, the long history of interface conflicts between functional teams continues to attract research attention. Past research has given more attention to conflicts between marketing and sales teams than to triadic interface conflict between custom-focused teams and their sub-conflicts in a business-to-business (B2B) sales process. The purpose of this research paper is to quantify the triadic interface conflicts and associated sub-conflicts between customer-focused teams, discuss conflict resolution strategies and perform a sensitivity analysis (SA) to give a fuller account of functional team conflict.

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) based in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed for identifying and resolving conflicts in customer-focused team interfaces. A group of 30 managers of a large electronics company participated in this research. The authors collected the data from customer-focused team managers during training sessions on interface conflicts and conflict management/resolution strategies. The authors perform SA to test the robustness of conflict resolution strategy rankings.

The findings reveal that managers adjudge task as the most crucial conflict attribute driving teams apart, followed by lack of communication. For the sub-conflicts, managers considered how to do the task as the most important conflict attribute, followed by lack of regular meetings. For conflict resolution strategies, managers regarded collaboration or integration as the overall best strategy, followed by compromise. Leveraging the AHP-based MCDM to resolve customer-focused team interface conflicts provides managers with the confidence in the consistency and the robustness of these solutions. By testing the SA, it is also discovered that the final outcome stayed robust (stable) regardless when the priorities of the main criteria influencing the decision are increased and decreased by 5% in every combinations.

This study examined only a large B2B company in the electronics industry in African and Middle East settings, focusing on interface conflicts among customer-focused departments. Future research could address these limitations.

This paper advances our understanding of customer-focused team interface conflicts in a B2B sales process. It also provides valuable insights on effective management of major and sub-interface conflicts. This paper provides a framework for and practical insights into how interface conflicts that are prevalent in marketing, sales and service sectors can be resolved to improve customer experience and business performance.

This study contributes to the literature by developing an AHP-based MCDM, which not only extends our conceptual understanding of the interface conflicts between customer-focused teams by emphasizing their triadic nature but also provides valuable strategies and insights into the practical resolution of such conflicts in a B2B firm’s sales process. Methodologically, SA is valuable to ensuring the robustness of the conflict resolution strategies’ rankings that will influence relevant pragmatic decision-making.