Turf wars: what the intraorganisational conflict literature may contribute to our understanding of marketing strategy implementation

Abstract

The problem of strategy non-implementation, defined here as variance between intended and enacted strategy, is important and complex but poorly understood. This paper explores the explanatory value of theories regarding intraorganisational conflict. It concludes that certain concepts from this area, notably Walton and Dutton's model of interdepartmental conflict, when augmented with ideas from the social psychology literature and empirical observations of marketing's interface with other functions, help our understanding of marketing strategy implementation. These conclusions are expressed in terms of six postulates and concomitant hypotheses that may form the basis of future work towards improving the understanding and management of strategy implementation.

Keywords:

• strategy
• implementation
• intraorganisational conflict
• realistic conflict theory
• social identity theory
• social categorisation theory