Cross-functional Integration and New Product Performance — The Impact of National and Corporate Culture

Cross-functional integration (CFI) is regarded as a key success factor in new product development. Since most of the research in this area has been conducted in single-country environments, researchers have asked how CFI is affected by national culture and have pointed out the need to analyze the impact of other contingency factors, such as corporate culture. Following these calls for further research, we collected data from 619 companies in six countries with pronounced national cultural differences. Using hierarchical regression analysis, we found that the effects of CFI's dimensions (cross-functional interaction and collaboration) are stronger when the organization operates in a national culture with strong collectivism. This moderating effect is strengthened when the corporate culture of the organization is strong, suggesting an interaction effect between the two levels of the culture construct.