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Keywords Internal marketing, Issues, Internal communications, Marketing competences, Relationship marketing
Abstract This commentary discusses the key issues and challenges that face internal marketing research and for the future development of the concept and philosophy. Issues addressed include: the link between employee satisfaction and organisational performance; the need for research on how inter-functional co-ordination can be achieved for the effective implementation of marketing strategies; the need for relationship marketing perspective in internal marketing, the need for research in internal communication strategies; and the role of internal marketing for developing organisational competences.
Introduction
In the discussion that follows we provide discussion of key issues and challenges for internal marketing (In research. This is not an exhaustive discussion, but we elaborate on what we consider As pertinent features of IM and some of the issues and questions that need to be addressed for the future development of the concept and philosophy. Issues addressed include: the need for research on how inter-functional co-ordination can be achieved for the effective implementation of marketing strategies; the need for relationship marketing perspective in IM; the need for research in internal communication strategies; and the role of IM for developing organisational competences. However, we begin the discussion with the examination of the link between employee satisfaction and organisational performance.
IM, employee satisfaction and performance
A key premise underlying Berry's (1981) "employees as customers" concept in IM is that just like external customers, internal customers desire to have their needs satisfied. The logic of this is that by satisfying the needs of internal customers, an organisation should be in a better position to deliver the quality desired to satisfy external customers. Implicit in this is the assumption that fulfilling employee needs enhances employee motivation and retention, and as a consequence the higher the degree of employee satisfaction, the higher the possibility of generating external satisfaction and loyalty. While this assumption is intuitively plausible, evidence supporting it remains sketchy. Papers presented in this issue raise several questions with respect to the nature and meaning of this conceptualisation which merit further empirical investigation. One possible avenue is to examine whether employee satisfaction operates through an intervening variable such as organisational commitment rather than directly on performance (see for instance Brown and Peterson, 1993; Caruana...