Although marketing activities are vital for new ventures (NVs) to ensure growth and survival, previous research is silent on how to organize them in firms’ infancy. The entrepreneurship literature focuses on which marketing activities to perform in NVs but not on how to organize these activities, whereas the marketing literature concentrates on how to organize marketing activities in established firms but not in NVs, which face specific opportunities and challenges in their early stage of development. This article aims to tackle this research gap by examining marketing’s role within NVs’ organization. Drawing on in-depth interviews with managers, we identify two key organizational dimensions: marketing’s dispersion (related to the proliferation and, thus, wide anchoring of marketing responsibilities) and marketing’s structuration (related to the manifestation and, thus, deep anchoring of marketing responsibilities). Through a field survey and archival data, we show that marketing’s dispersion enhances NV profitability, while marketing’s structuration decreases it, and that with increasing marketing influence (i.e., power of marketing actors) in NVs and NV maturity (i.e., age and size), this diametrical pattern of effects becomes less pronounced. Overall, the findings provide novel theoretical and practical insights into the organizational design of marketing in firms’ infancy.

尽管营销活动对于新企业 (NV) 确保增长和生存至关重要，但之前的研究并未提及如何在公司初期组织营销活动。创业文献侧重于在 NV 中执行哪些营销活动，而不是如何组织这些活动，而营销文献侧重于如何在成熟的公司中组织营销活动，而不是在 NV 中组织营销活动，NV 在其早期阶段面临特定的机遇和挑战的发展。本文旨在通过检验市场营销在 NV 组织中的作用来填补这一研究空白。通过对管理人员的深入访谈，我们确定了两个关键的组织维度：营销的分散（与扩散相关，因此，营销责任的广泛锚定）和营销的结构化（与营销责任的表现形式相关，因此与营销责任的深度锚定相关）。通过实地调查和档案数据，我们表明营销的分散提高了 NV 的盈利能力，而营销的结构化降低了它，并且随着 NV 中营销影响力（即营销参与者的力量）和 NV 成熟度（即年龄和规模）的增加，这种截然不同的效果模式变得不那么明显了。总的来说，这些发现为企业初期营销的组织设计提供了新颖的理论和实践见解。随着 NV 的营销影响力（即营销参与者的权力）和 NV 成熟度（即年龄和规模）的增加，这种截然不同的影响模式变得不那么明显。总的来说，这些发现为企业初期营销的组织设计提供了新颖的理论和实践见解。随着 NV 的营销影响力（即营销参与者的权力）和 NV 成熟度（即年龄和规模）的增加，这种截然不同的影响模式变得不那么明显。总的来说，这些发现为企业初期营销的组织设计提供了新颖的理论和实践见解。