Managing conflict between marketing and other functions within charitable organisations
Leadership & Organization Development Journal
ISSN: 0143-7739
Article publication date: 1 March 2004
Abstract
Extensive research has been undertaken into the proposition that certain organisational arrangements and working methods (e.g. centralisation, functional specialisation, multi‐disciplinary teamworking and training, organisation‐wide reward systems) influence the levels of dysfunctional conflict in businesses. The present study assessed the relevance of these variables for explaining the existence of conflict between marketing and other departments within non‐profit organisations. Additionally the investigation examined the role of “psychological distance” (a construct borrowed from the international marketing literature) as a possible determinant of conflict. A total of 148 marketing managers of large UK charities completed a questionnaire exploring these matters. It emerged that several of the factors known to mitigate dysfunctional conflict in the commercial world exerted similar effects in many of the sample charities. Psychological distance was significantly associated with both the presence of dysfunctional conflict within a charity and the manners whereby conflict resulted in adverse organisational consequences.
Keywords
Citation
Bennett, R. and Savani, S. (2004), "Managing conflict between marketing and other functions within charitable organisations", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 180-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/1437730410521840
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited