| Although marketing managers are involved in a variety of cross-functional teams, little is known about the factors that influence the effectiveness of these teams. In this dissertation, the author proposed a framework of cross-functional team effectiveness, focusing on factors that are under the direct control of managers designing teams. Relevant research on group effectiveness, horizontal structures, and group motivation theories served as the basis for the framework. This framework proposed that three categories of design factors--team composition, task characteristics, and reward structures--affect three team processes (effort, task interaction, and conflict), which in turn affect two facets of team effectiveness--task performance and team cohesiveness. Specific facets of each of the design factors were identified, and research propositions for the effects of each of these facets on the three team processes were developed.; These research propositions were then tested in two empirical studies. The first study was a quasi-experiment, using teams of MBA students playing MARKSTRAT, a marketing strategy game. Results from this study indicated that team size, functional diversity, task interdependence, and duality of resources affect team processes. Specifically, team size hindered effort, functional diversity encouraged task interaction, task interdependence helped effort and task interaction, and duality of resources hurt task interaction.; The second study was a survey of actual cross-functional teams in three companies. Members and supervisors of 15 cross-functional teams completed a mail questionnaire concerning their team. This study provided insights into the effects of design factors on team processes. For the team composition effects, skill diversity and diversity in orientations were found to lead to increased effort and task interaction. For the task characteristic effects, task interdependence was found to encourage effort and task interaction, while task ambiguity discouraged both. Task difficulty helped task interaction and effort was highest at moderate levels of difficulty. Finally, for the reward structure effects, results indicated that organizational support for the team helped effort and task interaction and that, as the proportion of individual over team rewards increased within a team, both effort and task interaction decreased. |
