The Marketing/accounting Interface : Routledge : 9781138192881 : 1138192880 : 21 Jan 2016 : When marketing managers and financial managers join forces within any business, the result can often be poor communication on financial criteria and goals. The risk of this situation occurring is inevitably present when those with different professional backgrounds and roles are working in accordance with their own norms. In his seminal 1956 paper on general systems theory, the economist Kenneth Boulding referred to the phenomenon of "specialised ears and generalised deafness", which can be seen to exist when marketing managers are financially illiterate or when financial managers lack the necessary insights to design, implement and operate accounting systems which are useful to marketing managers in carrying out their roles. It is increasingly difficult to attach credence to the idea of marketing managers who lack financial skills, or financial managers who fail to relate to the context i