Content area
Full Text
Keywords Marketing, Knowledge management, Organizational development, Relationship marketing
Abstract This article explores the structural relationships through which internal marketing can create value for an organisation, its customers and its employees. It is argued that internal marketing requires a relationship-mediated approach, where planned phases of learning activity in volunteer groups generate new internally valid knowledge critical to the improvement of external market performance. Thus internal marketing is defined as a relationship development strategy for the purpose of knowledge renewal. First, the author presents a typology of knowledge exchange patterns within organisations on which internal marketing is based Second, a four-phase internal marketing process grounded in case research is presented Next, the structure of relationship development for internal marketing is described, one which mediates knowledge transfer between the individuals involved and to their organisation as a whole. Finally, the paper offers five propositional statements in support of a relationship-mediated theory of internal marketing.
Introduction
In globally deregulated, technologically enhanced business environments, it has become a truism to say that the only constant in business is change. Strategies can no longer be designed without allowing for and capturing what is emergent in contemporary situations as they unfold (Mintzberg, 1994). Senge (1990), as one among others, has popularised the idea that routine forecasting, planning and analytical business methods are not sufficiently agile to impact positively on organisational performance and that the answer must be found within the practice of the "learning organisation". Yet inter-functional coordination of external customer-oriented actions remains problematic (Dibb and Simkin, 2000). Many organisations struggle against internal rigidity and a knowledge gap that ensures no escape.
Can internal marketing address this problem?
More than 20 years after Berry (1981) advocated treating retail banking employees as internal customers, there is renewed interest in internal marketing and what it means in today's business environment (see for example, Ballantyne et al, 1995; Foreman and Money, 1995; Piercy, 1995; Rafiq and Ahmed, 1995; Ballantyne, 1997; Hogg et aL, 1998; Varey and Lewis, 1999). This special issue of the European Journal of Marketing also attests to this interest. Additional evidence is the recent publication of an editorial selection of new research on internal marketing (Varey and Lewis, 2000). Notwithstanding, there is no agreement on its strategic intent or a...