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1. Introduction
Over time, companies have learned to group activities, people and resources into processes, turning functional silos into cross-functional relationships that, through collaboration, are able to meet the demands of the market (Galpin et al., 2007). The concept of cross-functional integration has emerged from the need to facilitate the coordination between departments within an organization that is necessary to succeed in the market place (Rho et al., 1994; Griffin and Hauser, 1996; Morash et al., 1996; Murphy and Poist, 1994; Krohmer et al., 2002; Daugherty et al., 2009; Pimenta et al. (2016).
To better understand cross-functional integration, Pimenta et al. (2016) have derived five types of factors present in the cross-functional integration process. These are points of contact, integration factors, formality/informality, integration level and integration impacts. The factor “integration factors” brings together a variety of management tools, or states of interpersonal collaboration, which stimulate the existence of cross-functional integration. One of the factors in this category is the cross-functional team (CFT). Even though research exists on CFTs, the service industry is yet to gain attention.
A CFT is a group of individuals with different skills from different functional disciplines, occupations or roles that aims to fulfill a given task within a given process (Dougherty, 1992; Holland et al., 2000; Edmondson and Nembhard, 2009; Daspit et al., 2013). When members of a CFT try to carry out joint activities, it is not uncommon that conflicts arise (Moses and Ahlstrom, 2008). This may be related to functional interdependence, poorly defined or misunderstood functional strategies and/or misaligned functional objectives. If the internal dynamics of the team do not support collaborative interactions among the members, the maximum potential of the team will not be reached (Daspit et al., 2013). Better understanding of how to encourage such favorable environments can help to improve operations, and while the understanding is growing, there are still blank areas.
The existing research in the field of CFTs focuses on impacts on the performance of processes or projects resulting from the use of CFTs (Maltz and Kohli, 1996; Krohmer et al., 2002; Webber, 2002; Luo et al., 2006; Matthyssens and Johnston, 2006; Chernatony and Cottam, 2009; Turkulainen and Ketokivi, 2012), product research and development...