Research Of Enterprise's R&D-Marketing Interface Management Flexibility In Dynamic Environment

The fierce competition among firms and the drastic change of business environment have led today's firms to compete from static to dynamic, especially when they want to gain competitive advantages. The past research models on R&D-Marketing interface management have hardly considered the characteristic changes of environmental dynamisms and the change of enterprise strategies, leaving the R&D-Marketing interface rather inflexible. It is believed that in a complex, dynamic environment, the R&D-Marketing interface has to adjust itself according to the change of the environment. The inflexible management of such interface will surely become the obstacle of the quick response of organizations to the environment. The objective of this research is as follows: In the dynamic environment, why firms' R&D-Marketing interface should be managed flexibly and how to carry out management flexibility. To achieve this objective, the system theory has been applied for the in-depth investigation during the research process.The thesis firstly exploits challenges of new product development in today's environment, which form new problems for the management of firms' R&D-Marketing interface. After an intensive study of the theories in R&D-Marketing interface management, the limitedness of the current theories is pointed out. Based on the competitive advantage theories, by analyzing the environmental dynamisms, the relationship between strategy, environment and firms, and the viewpoint of firms' dynamic capability in the dynamic environment, the effecting of R&D-Marketing interface management to firms' dynamic capability, the author argues that the strategic orientation of firms' R&D-Marketing interface management should be the increase of firms' dynamic capability and further deducts theoretically the hypotheses of firms should be provided with R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility.Secondly, this thesis analyzes the structural characteristics of dynamic environments, i.e. the environmental dynamism of demands, the environmental dynamism of technology, and the environmental dynamism of competition, on which the conceptual research framework for empirical study, variables and measuring index are designed. A survey by delivering questionnaires to R&D managers and Marketing managers of 127 enterprises and the data processing afterwards show that in different dynamic environments, firms' R&D-Marketing integration have different demands and the effectiveness of integration mechanisms varies.Therefore the author concludes that firms need to be flexible in R&D-Marketing integration degree and integration mechanisms.Thirdly, the research explores why R&D-Marketing interface should have the flexibility of innovation strategies. Two types of innovation, i.e. incremental innovation and radical innovation and their roles in a firm's development are discussed. After conducting empirical research to the listed companies from the pharmaceutical industry and electro -information industry, types of innovation and their relationship with organizations, the challenges of the two types of innovation to a firm's R&D-Marketing interface management is discussed. The author argues that firms, in order to balance two types of innovation, should be flexible in organization, management and decision; and the management flexibility of R&D-Marketing interface is the significant dimension in constructing flexible innovation strategies of firms.This thesis, based on flexibility theory, analyzes R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility in its definition, connotation and capability formation. It proposes sixteen dimensions for the construction of a firm's R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility, designs and describes the conceptual model of R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility and its functioning mechanisms, explores the set-up of Inserting-in interface flexible layer and the suggestion of implementing a team-based award system.Furthermore, the author puts forward the hierarchical structure model for decision-making of R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility, based on Analytic Hierarchy Process and the characteristic of dynamic environments that the firms are in. By using this model, the proportion of R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility dimensions are analyzed. Together with the gray systematic theory and fuzzy mathematics technique, the R&D-Marketing interface management flexibility assessment model is built up for assessing the flexibility of R&D-Marketing interface and its rationality. The validity of the model is proved by the data calculation and elaboration of two sample companies.In a word, this research provides with a completely new set of theories and methods for firms' R&D-Marketing interface management. It is of great theoretical and practical value to the sustainable construction of firms' competitive advantage in the dynamic environment.