Perceived marketing–sales relationship effectiveness: a matter of justice

There is a compelling need to improve the relationship between managers in marketing and sales departments. This paper argues that one critical way of enhancing individual managers’ perceptions of relationship effectiveness between these departments is to view the issue as a matter of justice and suggests that perceived marketing–sales relationship effectiveness is positively influenced by managers’ perceptions of organizational justice. Furthermore, it proposes that interfunctional communication has the potential to enhance the proposed positive effects of justice and hence needs to be considered and effectively managed when looking at marketing–sales relationship effectiveness. Data drawn from a survey of 203 marketing and sales managers in 38 consumer packaged goods companies are used to empirically test these predictions. The authors find that perceived sales–marketing relationship effectiveness is influenced by perceptions of distributive, procedural and interactional justice. Greater interfunctional communication is found to further enhance the positive effects of distributive and procedural justice on perceived relationship effectiveness, but it does not contribute to the already strong positive effects of interactional justice. Furthermore, results reveal important differences in the effects of justice on perceived relationship effectiveness across the marketing and sales departments.