The double-helix model of manufacturing and marketing strategies

Based on the competence perspective of strategic management, in this paper we present a study of the co-evolution of manufacturing and marketing strategies as resource and capability building processes. Taking into account the dyadic nature of the strategy process (deliberate and emergent), initially, through the development of a system dynamics model which operationalises the dynamic capabilities theory, we provide an explanatory framework for the inherent and inevitable misalignment of the two functional strategies. Then, based on a longitudinal case study, we develop a conceptual model of the co-evolution of the two strategies which depicts that manufacturing and marketing strategies of growing companies are interrelated in the same way as the double helix of DNA is structured: manufacturing resources and capabilities act as hinge capabilities for developing marketing resources and capabilities, and vice versa. The model exposes the co-evolutionary nature of the two strategies and provides managers with a reference framework for governing the dynamics of the two functional strategies more efficiently.