Title

New insights on marketing and performance outcomes: Applying a team lens

Date of Completion

January 2006

Keywords

Business Administration, Marketing

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

Over the past several decades, marketing has occupied an increasingly central role in the studies of organizational success. While marketing researchers have examined antecedents of business performance at both the individual and organizational level, little research has examined how teams can influence organizational performance. Teams have begun to play a major role in many organizations as firms have begun to embrace technology and increase both their customer and competitor focus, which suggests higher market orientations. Both researchers and practitioners alike offer that teams can help firms exploit their new technological and market orientations thereby increasing firm performance. This research examines the impact that a team's characteristics, behaviors and attitudes have on specific outcomes that ultimately lead to organizational performance. ^ In the first study, I build upon previous research in the market orientation and innovation literatures and examine how the behavior of the top management team can influence the aforementioned relationships as well as several dimensions of performance. Employing a multi-group approach in structural equation modeling, I demonstrate the moderating role of the top management team's involvement with the technology innovation. In addition to finding support for the relationships grounded in previous theory, my findings also suggest that having top management 'champion' the technology innovation initiatives is crucial for successful results. The findings of this research suggest significant theoretical and managerial implications. ^ In the second study, I examine the antecedents, consequences, and role of team processes using 229 work teams over time in a pharmaceutical organization. Specifically, I examine leader empowering behaviors, team virtualness, and experience as determinates of team process. I then examine effort and performance as outcomes of these processes. Moreover, I examine the three interactions between the antecedents as additional predictors of team processes. The results of this research indicate that experience, virtualness, and their interaction have a negative influence on team processes; whereas, empowerment by the sales mangers and the interaction of empowerment and experience enhance team processes. I also find that team processes enhance team effort and performance. I conclude with directions for future research and application. ^

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