Journal of Marketing: Best Paper Award for FEB professors Verhoef and Leeflang

The paper 'Understanding the Marketing Department’s Influence Within the Firm' by prof. Peter Verhoef and prof. Peter Leeflang of the faculty, has won the Harald M. Maynard Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Marketing in 2009. They are the first researchers of a university outside the US and the first Dutchmen that win this prize.  The award will be presented to them the Winter Conference of the American Marketing Association in New Orleans (USA) to be held from 19-22 February 2010.


Publisher of the Journal, the American Marketing Association named the award after US professor of Marekting Maynard, who is a pioneer in this area.

Innovativeness marketing
The winning paper investigates the influence of the marketing department within firms and assesses its determinants and consequences. The results show that the accountability and innovativeness of the marketing department represent the two major drivers of its influence.

However, the results do not indicate that the customer-connecting role of the marketing department increases its influence, though this role is important for shaping the firm’s market orientation. A marketing department’s influence is related positively to market orientation, which in turn is related positively to firm performance. This study also suggests a dual relationship between the marketing department’s influence and market orientation. A key implication of this study is that marketers should become more accountable and innovative to gain more influence.

Award
The yearly winner of the award is determined based on a voting system. The articles that receives the largest number of votes of editorial board members receives the award.

"Science and practice"
In a first reaction on the award Verhoef says: We are very pleased and honored with this award. And it means a lot to us, that we have done this jointly working in our department of marketing here in Groningen. It was a very nice experience to jointly work on this important research project. Moreover, it shows that one can do excellent research, that both has a strong impact on marketing practice and marketing science."

Literature
Verhoef, Peter C. and Peter S.H. Leeflang (2009), Understanding the Marketing Department’s Influence Within the Firm, Journal of Marketing, 73 (2), 14-37.

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