Abstract

The marketing field is increasingly recognizing that marketing capabilities and competencies are being dispersed outside the confines of a centralized marketing department and across multiple boundaries. The marketing discipline, as a whole, is grappling in its attempts to understand the effects of dispersion. Yet, empirical work focusing on marketing dispersion has been relatively limited in its perspectives.

The goal of this dissertation is to broaden the current understanding of marketing dispersion—specifically the dispersion of marketing capabilities (i.e. the firm's abilities and knowledge that are developed and maintained from and within its organizational processes).

To meet this goal, a new multi-faceted psychometric tool for measuring dispersion is developed and tested within a path model. Using a sample of marketing managers and executives, the model examines aspects of a business unit's internal and external environment that may influence the degree to which a business unit disperses it marketing capabilities. Similarly, the effects of marketing capability dispersion on marketing strategy execution, business relationships and business unit performance are tested. Finally, structural and coordination mechanisms are tested as moderating conditions on the relationship between dispersion and its consequents.

The findings suggest that both the internal and external environment affect the dispersion of marketing capabilities. Specifically, the business unit's longstanding belief in the value of relationships, relational proclivity, and its market and technological environment both increase the degree to which a business unit disperses its marketing capabilities. Second, dispersion affects marketing strategy execution, relationship portfolio effectiveness and business unit performance. Finally, the degree of centralization within the business unit serves as a boundary condition between dispersion and business unit performance.