Integração interfuncional e socialização e seus efeitos no desempenho de portfólio de produtos: survey em empresas inovadoras no Brasil

Abstract

The product portfolio management belongs to a bigger context, full of uncertainty, having the lack of information one of its main problems. In order to minimize it the socialization, coming from knowledge management, is pointed by literature as fundamental to organizational relationships and it could provide tools to improve the flow of information. Besides, socialization can be facilitated by several factors, among them inter-functional integration, in such a way that the quality of the exchange of information could be an indicator of how strong are the relationships between departments inside a company. It could also impact the performance of the product portfolio management by the creation of links between these departments, hence a better information flow. From this scenario, the study below aims to analyze, through a theoretical model developed from a systematic bibliographic review, the effects of inter-functional integration and socialization on product portfolio performance as well as the mediation of socialization between inter-functional integration and product portfolio performance. The target population were the most innovative companies in Brazil and the method of analysis used is Survey. From a population of 252 companies, 131 answers were considered to form the sample. The LinkedIn was used to contact the respondents that were employees from departments linked with product portfolio management inside the companies from the population. From the structural equation modeling with partial least squares approach, the results were: the socialization has a positive and significant effect on product portfolio management; inter-functional integration has a positive and significant effect on socialization; inter-functional integration has no positive nor even significant effect on product portfolio performance; socialization has a mediator effect on the relation between inter-functional integration and product portfolio performance. Finally, it was found that while the effect of inter-functional integration on product portfolio performance only occurs if socialization is present, the first is a priority when it comes to improving product portfolio performance in managerial contexts. When it comes to business implications, these results show the need for management actions aimed at improving interaction and collaboration factors, with emphasis on the latter, such as the pursuit of common goals, informal communication, sharing of information and resources, formation of self-managing and multidisciplinary teams, among members of different departments of the company in order to improve the flow of information and the success in the product portfolio performance.