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Transcript of Internal Marketing - A Review on a Broadened Concept and Its Operationalisation
7/28/2019 Internal Marketing - A Review on a Broadened Concept and Its Operationalisation
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Internal marketing: review on a broadened concept
and its operationalisation
Sebastian Theopold
Marc Schacherer
DBA Anglia Business School
Research Paper 2
2002
Abstract
Over 20 years ago internal marketing was first proposed and has been in a controversy discussion since.
However, as yet, few empirical research has been undertaken since organisations have not actually implementedthe concept in practice as there does not exist a single unified concept of what is meant by internal marketing.Although most recent research rather concentrates on practical implementation than on definition. The literaturereview describes three major pillars of the concept, namely employee relationship, market orientation, andstrategy implementation. Proposes a synthesis of the different definitions with the aim to illustrate a broaderdefinition of IM.. Introduces relationship marketing and the learning organisation for operationalising IM as part ofthe most recent influences on the discussion. Summarises suggestions for some themes for possible fruitfulresearch in internal marketing.
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................1
1.INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................2
2.INTERNAL MARKETING..................................................................................................2
2.1.I NTERNAL MARKETING AND SERVICE QUALITY...............................................................2
2.2.BALANCED APPROACH......................................................................................................3
2.3.IDENTIFYING THE EVOLUTIONARY PILLARS OF IM............................................................3
3.A BROADER CONCEPT OF INTERNAL MARKETING..............................................4
3.1.EMPLOYEE R ELATIONS......................................................................................................5
3.2.MARKET ORIENTATION.....................................................................................................63.3.STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION............................................................................................7
4.LIMITATIONS OF THE IM CONCEPT...........................................................................9
4.1.SYNTHESISING THE FINDINGS AND PROPOSING A DEFINITION FOR IM..............................9
5.INFLUENCES ON THE CURRENT DISCUSSION OF INTERNAL MARKETING10
5.1.R ELATIONSHIP MARKETING............................................................................................12
5.2.LEARNING ORGANISATION..............................................................................................15
6.IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH............................................................18
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................18
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1. Introduction
During times where the economy decreases and where
former predictions about growth, prosperity and
development especially in the area of Information
Technology (e-Business) no longer matches the
reality, enterprises are forced to identify strategies and
options that properly adapt to the new circumstances.
As about 5 years ago a new wave of companies and
entrepreneurs were brought to the market space
mainly feed by the utopians of the Internet we find out
that during times of consolidation and disillusion only
a limited number of this generation still competes
within the respected segment.
Looking back a few years we recognized fashionable
organisations with low hierarchies, flexible working
hours, wages above average, trendy products and
unlimited growth perspectives. As reality turned back
and the economic principals still build the fundament
of the economy the entrepreneurial newcomers are
turning back to proven concepts with the aim to
embed their enterprises in the traditional economic
framework.
But as unique as the raising of the new companies was
the same still holds for the uniqueness of the current
situation. More precisely it is to say that especially in
the area of business software and software services a
significant number of companies are still fighting to
overcome the childhood phase with the goal to enter a
more mature state. In the first step of the research path
two different companies (Virtual Identity, Impress
Software), competing within the segment of e-
Business have been analysed in terms of history,current perspective, market forces and strategy. The
results have shown that due to the fast development
organizational homework has not been done
sufficiently. In detail it is to say that internal
operations and external intersections (customers,
partners and employees) are not clearly defined and do
not support the main purpose which is to satisfy the
customers needs and wants on a long-term basis
through a high service quality.
In this paper the model of internal marketing is
highlighted with the purpose to clarify its scope and
its strategic role in the implementation of change
strategies.
2. Internal Marketing
Since more than 25 years the concept of internal
marketing (IM) has been discussed in a wide range of
the academic literature, (see for example Sasser and
Arbeit, 1976; Berry et al ,1976; George 1977, 1990;
Grönroos 1981, 1989; Winter 1985; Flipo, 1986;
Richardson and Robinson, 1986; Gummesson, 1987;
Piercy and Morgan, 1991; Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993;
Piercy, 1995; Cahill, 1995 ; Pitt and Foreman, 1999;
Lings, 1999). Despite the increasing interest of several
researchers and practitioners there exists a great
confusion about the exact definition of IM, its primary
domain and the value it delivers to managers and
organizations. The variety of approaches and
interpretations has brought up a number of relevant
perspectives under the meta headline of IM.
The confusion has been further increased with the
great deal of discussion about the economic concept of
internal markets (Fama, 1980; Williamson et al.,
1975). As much of the work on IM is embryonic and
descriptive or prescriptive this review will attempt to
provide a helpful overview about the terms evolution
within the economic literature, its current discussion
and implications for practical research.
The first part of the paper focuses on analysing three
major pillars of IM and their purpose for the
conceptualisation of the program. The findings are
critically examined and the limitations of the concept
are discussed before an attempt is started to synthesisthe different definitions with the aim to illustrate a
broader definition of IM. While the second part
examines the current discussion in the field of IM and
provides fruitful implications for future research
activities.
2.1. Internal Marketing and Service
Quality
In consideration of the named differences and the
difficulties to define the concept of IM (Piercy and
Morgan, 1991, Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993) most writers
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seem to accept that IM should create quantitative and
qualitative improvements in terms of service quality
through the observation and control of service output
that is executed by employees (George, 1990;
Gummersson, 1987, Berry and Parasuraman, 1991;
Grönroos, 1985; Piercy, 1995). The need for
sustainable improvement in the organizational
capability to deliver high service quality that fits with
customers needs and wants, as a basis of competitive
advantage has drawn the attention within the academic
and professional management literature (Christopher
et al., 1991; Wilson et al., 1992).
This focus has directed the observation mainly in the
field of service providers like health care, financial
service, logistics and professional services (George,1986; Grönroos, 1983; Gummesson, 1991). More
general researches have also emphasized that actually
all suppliers are service providers and that their
service competence is an important factor in creating
customer loyalty and distinct competitive advantages
(Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988; Reichelt, 1997). This
service-centred business philosophy finds its most
accurate wording from Vandermerwe and Rand
(1988) who call it “servitization”.
2.2. Balanced Approach
The tendency towards a service culture in
organizations raises questions about the rigour
external view of marketing. As the attention and
performance to customers is lived and pursued by
employees a pressing need can be identified in the
literature to harmonise the balance between internaland external factors (Grönroos, 1985; Gummersson,
1987; Harrell and Fors, 1992; Piercy, 1995;). As
mentioned before, the limited focus on customers and
competitors only seems not to satisfy an
organizations’ goal to determine a long-term market
share and profitability. Gummesson (1991) argues that
the management of service quality has to take into
account external influences form the market space and
internal factors from the organisation. Other authors
have pointed out the unapologetic approach of
marketing strategy that can adequately satisfy the idea
that both internal and external factors have to be
considered on an equal footing (Greenley 1995; Foss,
1997). This is in contrast to the conventional
understanding of marketing strategies which are
executed by executives and mangers who primarily
focus on the external environment: customers,
competitors, suppliers and markets. The balanced
approach brings to the discussion the internal
marketing program that considers the internal
marketplace and internal customers to carry out
essentially the same process for the internal
marketplace (e.g. Grönross, 1982; Piercy and Morgan,
1991; Harrell and Fors, 1992; Foreman and Money,
1995; Varey and Lewis, 1999).
2.3. Identifying the evolutionary pillars of IM
The thinking of a balanced orientation in the field of
marketing poses the critical question which elements
have to be taken into account when tackling the issue
and what differences / commonness between the
internal and external program can be identified (Piercy
and Morgan, 1991). In order to determine the role of
an internally executed marketing approach and its
balanced input for the overall marketing strategy we
will examine and define three different but closely
related pillars from the evolutionary context of IM and
finally synthesize the findings with the aim to provide
a comprehensive definition of IM and adumbrate its
scope as boundaries and classification are fundamental
prerequisites to marketing analysis (Lovelock, 1983).
The pillars to be analysed in the context are:
- employee relationship
- market orientation perspective
- strategy implementation
All of the named perspectives have interrelationships
and overlapping moments with business domains
outside marketing. For example Human Resource
Management, Total Quality Management, Strategic
Management and others. This interdisciplinary
dimension underlines the opening paragraph where the
exact domain of IM is questioned and this in turn
should encourage managers and practitioners to
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approach the issue as a company-wide management
philosophy (Grönroos, 1985; George, 1990; Keegan et
al., 1992).
In the ongoing process of this review the different
perspectives are analysed and finally concluded with
the idea to come forward with a definition that has
been synthesised from the findings of reviewed
literature. The core difficulty that occurs when
defining the relatively independent but relevant
perspectives is their limited practical use for the
overall conceptual framework, particularly if we
aspire to precisely name the domain and value of IM
in order to legitimise organisations to make use of
strategies that go beyond the external marketing
program. In order to tackle the difficulty a synthesis of the definitions form the three pillars is undertaken
with the aim to take into consideration the requisite
components that are necessary to propose a set of
criteria for a general use and understanding of IM.
3. A broader concept of Internal
Marketing
Before the named pillars are discussed in detail a
broader concept of IM is delineated perusing the goalto determine its scope and definable boundaries which
are necessary for a thorough discussion of the
subject . As mentioned in the chapter above the
concept of IM is descended from the discipline of
service marketing (Berry, 1981; George, 1990; Varey
and Lewis, 1999). Whereas in contrast to product
marketing or the product-centric view of an
organisation the service and its output are physically
intangible. More precisely, a product can be produced
in a constant quality while the service quality of a
supplier has an inseparable relation with the person
who is executing the service.
Focus on contact and non-contact
employees
Reviewing the literature we find publications and
researchers mainly focusing on customer contact
personnel in service intensive businesses (Sasser and
Arbeit, 1976; Berry 1984 ; Bowen and Schneider,
1985; Tansuhaj et al. 1988; Woodside et al. 1989;
Philips et al., 1990; Berry and Parasuraman, 1991;
Ostroff, 1993) but there is also a respective number of
academics who consider the service quality and its
delivery process as a task for the whole organization
(George and Grönross, 1989; George, 1990; Heskett,
1992; Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993).
With the first group giving the assumption that
motivated and satisfied contact-employees are a
crucial precondition for the delivery of good service,
the second group more or less considers the overall
process within the organization as a successive
composition of the service output. Richardson and
Robinson (1986) for example have highlighted theinternal customer-supplier chain as an important factor
of good service to external customers.
With simultaneous consideration of both perspectives
it becomes obvious that by means of this the selection,
motivation, competence and performance of
employees can significantly influence the service
quality and also tangents the customer satisfaction.
The aspect of an internal customer orientation is based
on the notion that quality of internal operations is a
progressive function and therefore will influence the
quality output with the external market and satisfy the
external customer (Pfau et al., 1991). On the basis of
these assumptions and experiences the traditional
marketing concept has been extended by a further
category – the internal customers or the employees.
The Organization as a marketplaceThis leads us to the underlying idea of IM which is to
view an organization as an internal marketplace. With
this idea all departments of an organization have
customers that need to be served with performance –
either those customers are internally or externally
(Grönroos, 1981; Gummersson, 1987; Heskett, 1992;
Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993). The idea of internal
customers and the ongoing relations between them in
terms of service quality, service delivery processes
and common goals and values has been carried out
form different points of views such as TQM; HRM,
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Strategic Management (Piercy and Morgan, 1990 and
1991; Johnson and Scholes, 1989, 1993; Berry and
Parasuraman, 1991; Varey, 1995; Piercy 1995). Those
chameleonic disciplines where IM finds its purpose
also inherits one of the most challenging tasks, namely
the exact definition of its domain and responsibilities.
Reichelt (1997) for instance brought up the loyalty
effect. He found out the strong correlation of loyalty
between organizations to its employees and the
positive outcomes that is has on the overall customer
loyalty. He further argues that through the high loyalty
of its employees and customers the organization can
increase its total customer retention rate which brings
significantly positive effects on long-term market
share, turnover and overall margins.
3.1. Employee Relations
The first dimension of IM to be analysed in this
section is the management of employee relations. As
service quality depends on the human resources who
fulfil the service perceptions of the external
customers, George (1977) outlined that satisfied
customers require satisfied employees within the
organization. His idea was primarily tested in the
sectors where retail marketing had a strong influence
and provided some argument and little evidence. Later
publications extended the idea of a link between
customer satisfaction and employee motivation but
also intended to extend and define the boundaries of
IM (Hoffman and Ingram, 1991; Rafiq and Ahmed,
1993; Piercy, 1995). This brings us to the basic
approach that has been aligned by Berry (1981, p.34)where he defines IM as “viewing employees as
internal customers, viewing jobs as internal products
that satisfy the needs and wants of these internal
customers while addressing the objectives of the
organization.”
Considering the fact that each employee is an
individual with different attitudes and perceptions and
therefore the problem of fluctuation in output and
commitment triggers the need for a convergence of
HRM activities and Marketing practices (Collins and
Payne, 1991; Glassmann and McAfee, 1992). The co-
operation and inter-functional integration with the aim
to establish a common understanding for success
factors as well as organizational culture are treated by
Mastenbroek (1991). Barnes (1989) identifies the
importance for a marketing-like approach of HRM, in
which marketing techniques have a strong impact on
recruitment and training. He describes IM as “a
philosophy for managing the organization’s human
resources as a holistic management process to
integrate the multiple functions of the organization” .
Grönross (1981) accentuates that IM strives for the
integration of business functions and the creation of a
customer conscious employee environment. This
integrative approach finds further attendance fromStauss and Schulze (1999). They propose a human
resource oriented IM approach, which should secure,
continue and achieve the external marketing strategy
through the fellow employee.
Keeping in mind the employee-customer and job-
product perspective mentioned above the important
thing is to satisfy and motivate the needs and wants of
internal customers with a marketing like technique.
This seems to form a critical element of IM (Tansuhaj
et al., 1991). Assuming that customers in service
intensive businesses are buying a non insubstantial
portion of labour, the performance and with it the
motivation and satisfaction of the person who
generates it are inseparable (Berry, 1984).
The perspective of an internal market place in which
employees are treated as customers who buy products,
namely jobs from the employers is the basic notion of
the first pillar of IM described in this section. This
approach mainly is based on the assumption that the
level of service quality served to external customers
depends on the motivation and satisfaction of the
internal customers (Sasser and Arbeit, 1976; Grönross,
1981; Berry and Parasuraman, 1991) and therefore
requires an inversed use of marketing techniques
(Grönroos, 1981; Gummesson, 1987; Piercy and
Morgan, 1991; Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993). Perusing the
initial marketing goal to know what needs and wants
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the internal customer has is one part of the challenge
(Sasser and Arbeit, 1976; Varey, 1995). The second
part requires an inter-functional alliance between
HRM and Marketing with the aim to optimise the
synergetic potentials in employing motivated and
satisfied internal customers by offering internal
products (jobs) that are more attractive in comparison
to competitors (Grönross, 1981, Stauss and Schulz,
1999). Having identified the initial definition of IM
and the perspective of inter-functional collaboration
with HR finally leads us to an extended definition
from Berry and Parasuraman (1991, p.151) where they
state: “ Internal Marketing is attracting, motivating
and retaining qualified employees through job-
products that satisfy their needs. Internal marketing isthe philosophy of treating employees as customers…
and it is the strategy of shaping job-products to fit
their human needs:”
3.2. Market Orientation
The second pillar to be identified in the evolutionary
context of IM is the dimension of market orientation
within the organisation. Taking into account the basic
notion of George (1977) that satisfied customers
require motivated employees some writers especially
in the area of the service marketing literature have
analysed the need and methods to make personnel
aware of customer-consciousness and sales-
mindedness in order to maintain and improve the
service quality for the sake of the overall performance
(for expamle Berry, 1981; Bonoma, 1984; Crainer,
1990; Dyson and Foster, 1982; Flipo, 1986; Grönroos,
1985, Gummesson, 199; Piercy and Morgan, 1991a;
Wilson et al.,1992).
In an attempt to define market orientation Narver and
Slater (1990) suggests that market orientation is a
philosophy of doing business and defines it as: “The
organisational culture…that most effectively and
efficiently creates the necessary behaviours for the
creation of superior value for buyers and, thus,continuous superior performance for the business.”
His definition of a guiding philosophy finds a wide
acceptance in the academic literature and expresses
that organisational attitudes, values and beliefs do
influence the behaviour of the firm and its overall
performance. Slater (1990) any longer suggests that
market orientation consists of two dimensions:
customers and competitors (Slater, 1990, Day, 1990).
An example of customer orientation would be the
attempt to monitor employee commitment to
customers based on the notion that they understand the
customers needs and wants. An example of
competitive understanding would be the behaviour of
salespeople when sharing competitive information
with other functions and using them to take advantage
of competitor weaknesses (Grönroos, 1981 p.237).
Generally speaken the management of a marketoriented business approach and with it the market
oriented response represents the ability to understand
and satisfy customers and competitors through a
defined contribution of all employees and all
departments to collect and disseminate data and
design response modes (Day, 1990; Day and
Nedungadi, 1994; Slater and Narver, 1994; Kohli and
Jaworski, 1990).
The consequences of market oriented behaviour are
treated for instance by Kohli and Jaworski (1990).
They have asserted that it internally impacts on
employees and externally on customers. The internal
influence is further on supported by Lichtenthal and
Wilson (1992) who see significant consequences for
organisational and individual behaviour. Most
common internal benefits that occur through market
oriented approaches are employee commitment
(Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Siguaw et. al, 1994), esprit
de corps (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993) and job
satisfaction (Siguaw et. al, 1994). Explicit influences
of market orientation on sales people have been
asserted by Mengüc (1996). He found out that sales
people show more customer focus, less role ambiguity
and less role conflict. A popular tool to measure and
educate an organisation in terms of market orientation
are reward systems. Jaworski and Kohli (1993) report
that organisational reward systems have the strongest
impact on market orientation and that intelligently
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chosen reward systems can help to support the three
main elements of market orientation: collecting
information, dissemination of data and design of
responsive actions.
Grönroos (1981) focused in his research on customer-
contact people and brought to the discussion the point
that buyer-seller interactions not only provide
important interaction for re-purchasing opportunities
but that buyer-seller interactions also provide a
marketing opportunity for the organisation. Extending
the original view of George (1977) that employees
have to be motivated in order to deliver best
performance for their customers Grönroos (1981) and
collaborators stressed that employees also have to bemarket orientated or sales-minded (Grönroos, 1981,
George 1990, Day and Wensley 1988; Narver and
Slater 1990; Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Parasuraman
et. al (1988) expresses that failures in customer
satisfaction are reduced by a company wide exchange
of information on customers perceptions and that it
might improve the integration of work activities
between all members of the organisation. In order to
reach this goal Ballantyne (1991a) treats the
importance for an organisation to educate their
employees on customer service skills. He further
names techniques like quality improvement that can
be reached through a market-oriented business
philosophy and further on identifies it as a source for
competitive advantage and differentiation. But in
order to take advantage of this source of
differentiation the will of the employees to co-operate
and commit is required and it is considered to be an
important task of IM to make the employees “buy-in”
the basic belief of a customer-focused quality
management philosophy (Barnes, 1989; Ballantyne,
1991b).
Influencing and educating the internal market of
employees to a customer oriented and sales driven
attitude is extensively treated by George (1990) and
Grönross (1985). They propose the implementation
and use of active marketing-like techniques for the
internal customers with the aim to educate employees
towards customer-consciousness and sales-
mindedness. Drummond (1992) expands this point of
view and demands that employees have to be
motivated and educated to identify the external
customer by “thinking backwards” from the
customer’s needs and wants to the necessary actions to
be undertaken. The importance to make service
providers aware of service skills and marketing
approaches is addressed by Green et al (1994) who
states that “…the quality of the service is inseparable
from the quality of the service provider.”
Customer orientation as a further facet of IM is
dealing with service providers and their delivered
quality output through the mechanism of a market
orientated business philosophy. The desiredconsequences on the overall performance, return on
assets, employee motivation and retention of
customers in consideration of IM aspects and
strategies we recommend the definition of Grönroos
(1985, p.42) where he states: “The internal marketing
concept holds that an organisation’s internal market
of employees can be identified most effectively and
hence motivated to customer consciousness, market
orientation and sales mindedness by a marketing-like
internal approach and by applying marketing-like
activities internally.”
3.3. Strategy Implementation
The 3rd pillar of IM has recently gained a major
attention in the general management literature and
more specifically in the marketing literature (Berry,
1981, Bonoma, 1984; Crainer, 1990; Flipo, 1986;Grönroos, 1985; Gummersson, 1991, Stainsby, 1992;
Webb and Morgan, 1992; Wilson et. al.1992; Winter,
1985; Rafiq and Ahmed, 1993).
The discussion starts form a point where researchers
and practitioners have identified a number of
difficulties that occur when new strategies and plans
have to be implemented within an organisation
(Crainer, 1990; Piercy and Morgan, 1991; Wilson et.
al. 1992). Supposing that changes to be undertaken
effect the organisational culture and therefore provoke
strong resistance in terms of cross-functional adoption
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in enterprises has been observed. This is due to the
fact that changes in terms of strategy often are decided
out of context and without consideration of the
organisation’s existing culture (Burke, 1987). Flipo
(1986) outlined that the effective implementation of
new strategies requires a planned effort to overcome
inter-functional conflict and the need to improve
internal communication. Other authors have
mentioned the failure of managers to integrate the
respected employees who are actively influenced by
the changes and to communicate the content of their
plans (McKenna, 1992; Motyle, 1992; Smythe et. al.,
1992). A further problem for the effective planning
and implementation of change strategies seems to be
the lack of ownership resulting in undefinedcommitment form different managers (Pettigrew and
Whipp, 1991). More specifically Pettigrew and Whipp
(1991) observed that differences between senior
management in terms of responsibility and distinctions
in interest are not treated actively and therefore can
have negative influence on the overall process of
change. At this point Ballantyne (1991a) argues that
IM should provide a vital application enabling
decision takers and organizations to close the gap
between the formulation and implementation of
corporate strategies. His approach finds further
support from other writers who extend his view with
the necessity to generate knowledge, understanding,
involvement and consensus for marketing strategies
within the organisation (Christopher et. al. 1991;
Gummesson, 1991; Payne; 1988; Piercy and Morgan,
1990, 1991; Piercy and Peattie, 1988). Hence, IM is
considered as a mechanism for implementation and a
vehicle to integrate cross-functional departments and
interests (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2000). The integrative
potential of IM is more explicitly clarified by
Glassman and Mc Affee (1992). They identify the role
of IM in integrating marketing and personnel
perspective plus viewing personnel as a potential
resource for the marketing function. Especially
Ballantyne (1991a) stresses the necessity for
marketers to identify the single employee in order to
actively influence and motivate them to commonly
anticipate the change process. He further highlighted
the importance to implement internal processes to
effectively convert marketing plans. At this viewpoint
IM appears to be an implementation tool that has a
general use for any type of marketing strategy (Piercy
and Morgan 1989). Other authors have identified IM
as a central program to reduce departmental isolation,
inter-functional friction and the opportunity to
overcome resistance to change (Martin, 1992; Darling
and Taylor, 1989). Addressing the latter findings
above Piercy and Morgan (198) expressed that IM can
not only be seen within the context of service
marketing it further has to be generalized to a broader
range of use. Applying the concept for manufacturing
firms for example was proposed by Harrell and Fors(1992) . Ahmed and Rafiq (1995) propose IM as a
management implementation methodology that is
suitable for a diverse range of contexts.
Recapitulating the involvement of IM in the field of
strategy implementation this section ones again
expands the broader scope if IM. Having dealt with
employee relations first and secondly with market
orientation the 3rd pillar explicitly does also focus on
non-contact employees who influence the customer
service capabilities through back-office excellence.
The wider approach in terms of employees and
functions and the suitable link towards strategic
changes requires a more generalist approach from
managers and enterprises. Considering the integrative
approach between changes and functions IM can reach
success factors like market orientation, performance,
service quality and collaborative support for new
strategies. Referring to Wilson and Fook (1990) the
sustainable implementation of IM tools that facilitate
the change process leading to competitive advantages
requires “to market the marketing concept” and
function. Mercer (1992) even concludes that the
marketer’s role is equivalent to those of a change
agent.
Taking these issues into account and striving for the
need to define IM and classify its boundaries we
propose the definition of Ahmed and Rafiq (1993,
p.222) where they define IM as a “ planned effort to
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overcome organizational resistance to change and to
align, motivate and integrate employees towards the
effective implementation of corporate and functional
strategies”. Their definition clarifies that all kind of
changes in strategy require an IM effort to bypass
organisational obstacles and to motivate employees.
As most of strategic changes affect several
departments or functions they emphasize the
importance of cross-functional integration.
4. Limitations of the IM concept
The outlined model of IM which as been developed
from the traditional environment of marketing
includes a number of limitations. Applying the
concept for the “inner” market of an enterprise some
authors have highlighted considerable aspects in the
theoretical dimension as well as in the managerial
context.
The most fundamental problems occur due to the
missing definition of IM. The problem of a missing
definition not only leads to confusion in the practical
use and implementation, but also create contradictions
at the conceptual level with respect to the defined
boundaries and precise domain. Despite the variety of
definitions the missing of a unified concept prevents
to name the purpose and value of IM, what is it
supposed to do, how it is supposed to be done and
who is supposed to do it.
Ahmed and Rafiq (1993) have identified a number of
potential limitations in the current set of definitions
and approaches. For example unlikely the external
marketing dimension the “product” that employeescan buy may in fact be unwanted by them. Secondly
they put forward that the employees will not have a
choice in the “products” they select. Considering the
contractual nature of employment they argument that
employees in the final stage might accept “products”
they do not want. Further they point out the financial
aspects of having satisfied employees. And finally the
question is raised whether the internal customer or the
external customer has primacy when dealing with the
notion of the “employee as customer”.
The discussion of the primacy of customers finds a
wide attention among academics form different
schools (Grönroos, 1981; Sasser and Arbeit, 1976,
Ahmed and Rafiq, 1993). With a rigour focus on the
traditional marketing program the only customer that
exists is the external customer. Bringing together the
ideas of internal customers with external customers
raises the question as to weather the needs and wants
of which customers have primacy. Tom Farmer,
founder and chief executive of U.K. Kwik-Fit plc.
said:” in any business there are two types of customers
– internal customers and external customers.” The
academic literature doesn’t give a clear answer to the
question. Sasser and Arbeit (1976) for instance
propose that human resources are the most influentialmarketplace for a service driven organization and
therefore impart the internal customer primacy over
the external customer. Rosenblunth and Peters (1992)
argue that the needs and wants of external customers
only can satisfactorily be met after those of employees
have been successfully met. This point of view indeed
would reverse one of the most constitutional
presupposition of marketing – that the external
customer has primacy. On the basis of the
argumentation, it is proposed that a common
definition of IM avoiding the contradictions cited
above, should drop the phrase of “employee as a
customer”
4.1. Synthesising the findings and
proposing a definition for IM
The detailed review of the academic literature has
shown that there exist a number of different but
closely related areas where the broader concept of IM
can be used. Having analysed and identified three
independent pillars where IM finds appropriation
(employee relationship, market orientation
perspective and strategy implementation) the
following section attempts to combine the points of
views and definitions with the aim to provide a set of
criteria to conceptualise the main elements of IM.
Summarizing the findings in the evolutional
development of IM from the chapters above the
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following key criteria of what IM consists can be
mentioned:
- motivating and satisfying employees
- customer orientation and sales mindedness
- use of marketing-like approaches internally
- cross-functional collaboration and integration- change strategy and implementation
Considering the criteria above it is to say that the three
main pillars do not include all the headlines
simultaneously. In the first pillar for example Berry
and Parasuraman (1991, p.151) focus on the
motivation and satisfaction of employees that can be
reached through job-products that satisfy the human
needs. Whereas Grönross (1985, p.42) addresses in the
second pillar the importance of a market orientated
and sales minded employee who can be educated with
a marketing-like technique internally. Finally Ahmed
and Rafiq (1993) bring to discussion in the 3 rd pillar
the strategic dimension of IM. They point out the need
for an effective implementation of corporate and
functional strategies in order to overcome
organisational resistance.
Bearing in mind that the lowest common
determination of IM is the aim to improve the overall
service quality within enterprises (George, 1990;
Gummersson, 1987, Berry and Parasuraman, 1991;
Grönroos, 1985; Piercy, 1995) it is inescapable to
precise the current definitions to expand the area of
application. However it is being realized that the
domain of IM includes far more than the traditional
implementation of marketing programs it is necessary
to name a set of boundaries which include the
different perspectives. One definition that gives a very
clear and comprehensible picture of IM is proposed by
Grönross (1985, p.41). He says that:”…an
organisation’s internal market of employees can be
influenced most effectively and hence motivated to
customer consciousness, market orientation and sales
mindedness by applying a marketing-like internal
approach and by applying marketing-like activities
internally.” Meeting the criteria of market-orientation
and marketing-like techniques on the other hand it
lacks an emphasise on the change management
dimensions and the cross-functional integration.
Whereas Ahmed and Rafiq for instance (1993, p.222)
suggest that IM involves the following aspects: “…a
planned effort to overcome organizational resistance
to change and to align, motivate and integrate
employees towards the effective implementation of
corporate and functional strategies.” Their
definition respects the strategic importance and the
need to motivate staff but they do not allude the use of
marketing like techniques to accomplish.
Expanding both definitions and merging with the
criteria listed above the following definition of IM is
proposed:
IM is a planned effort using marketing-liketechniques internally to overcome cross-
functional resistance to change and to align,
motivate and cross-functionally integrate
employees towards the effective
implementation of change strategies in order
to deliver customer satisfaction through a
philosophy of creating motivated and customer conscious employees.
5. Influences on the current discussion of
Internal Marketing
The review of a wide body of literature of the last two
decades has revealed that the academic discourse on
internal marketing has shifted its emphasis from
defining the nature of internal marketing to finding
practical ways of implementing IM strategies or using
IM as a practical way of strategy implementation.
Varey (1999) has identified a number of themes
offering a contribution to the development of a more
sophisticated and valuable conception of internal
marketing:
• marketing-oriented service employee
management;
•the scope, nature and purpose of marketing;
• marketing as exchange;
• the political economy paradigm;
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which for them is to channel staff commitment and
team-work into market-orientated problem solving
and opportunity seeking. They conceptualise IM as:
“ Internal marketing is any form of marketing within
an organisation which focuses staff attention on the
internal activities that need to be changed in order to
enhance external marketplace performance
(Ballyntyne, 1995, p. 15).” Ballantyne concludes that
the common denominator in all internal marketing
perspectives is knowledge renewal. He defines
knowledge renewal as generating and circulating new
knowledge.
Also Lings (1999) identifies three phases of
approaches on IM. His classification for the third phase is the aiming at marketing and the marketing
concept and creating common values amongst all
employees. He finds the common denominator of IM
conceptualisations is the need of collecting
information about the internal market.
The next part of this review will concentrate on
relationship marketing and the learning organisation
which has been brought into the most recent
discussion in operationalising internal marketing in
the literature reviewed.
5.1. Relationship Marketing
Varey (1999) states that the relationship between
marketing and quality at a strategic level, i.e. how to
gain sustainable competitive advantage through a
customer orientation, becomes clearer. Still theimplementation of a practicable marketing approach
remains a recurring problem. In the literature, this is
often centred on the question of attaining and
maintaining effective communicative relationships
between organisation members and between work
groups and the development of a super-ordinate goal
for co-operative working.
One leading new approach for relationship building
and management has been labelled relationship
marketing which eventually has entered the marketing
literature (Grönroos, 1989, 1992; Jackson, 1985;
Gummesson, 1987,1990,1993; et al.).
Grönroos sees relationship marketing as a paradigm
shift from the “traditional” 4P marketing mix.
Relationship marketing is suggested as one new
marketing paradigm. Internal marketing is seen as a
process to be integrated with the total marketing
function. External marketing, both the traditional parts
of it and interactive marketing performance, starts
from within the organisation. As compared to
transaction marketing situations, a thorough and on-
going internal marketing process is required to make
relationship marketing successful. If internal
marketing is neglected, external marketing suffers or
fails.
He argues that the four Ps of the marketing mix are
not well able to fulfil the requirements of the
marketing concept. As Dixon and Blois (1983) put it,
“...indeed it would not be unfair to suggest that far
from being concerned with a customer’s interests the
views implicit in the four P approach is that the
customer is somebody to whom something is done”
To use a marketing metaphor, the marketing mix and
its four Ps constitute a production-oriented definition
of marketing, and not a market-oriented or customer-
oriented one. Moreover, although McCarthy (1960)
recognises the interactive nature of the Ps, the model
itself does not explicitly include any interactive
elements. Furthermore, it does not indicate the nature
and scope of such interactions. Especially since these
interactions occur between customers and “part-time
marketers” – employees who are not considered
marketing people.
Service providers tend to build long-lasting
relationships with their customers. Grönroos
developed the “customer relationship life-cycle”
model to describe the long-term nature of the
establishment and evolution of the relationship
between a firm and its customers. He identified that
managing this life-cycle is a relationship marketing
task due to the fact that “full-time marketers” with the
traditional four P approach only partly determine the
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success of a company with an individual customer
whereas the “part-time marketers” of a service
provider may often have a much more important
impact on the future purchasing decisions of the
customer. Therefore an interactive marketing
performance requires that all parts of the firm that are
involved in taking care of customers can collaborate
and support each other in order to provide customers
with a good total perceived quality and make them
satisfied. Thus, for a firm pursuing a relationship
marketing strategy the internal interface between
marketing, operations, personnel and other functions
is of strategic importance to success.
Grönroos (1990) defines relationship marketing in thefollowing way: “Marketing is to establish, maintain,
and enhance relationships with customers and other
partners, at a profit, so that the objectives of the
parties involved are met. This is achieved by a mutual
exchange and fulfilment of promises”.
Berry (1983) views relationship marketing as a
strategy to attract, maintain and enhance customer
relationships.
Rapp and Collins (1990) say that the goals of
relationship marketing are to create and maintain
lasting relationships between the firm and its
customers that are rewarding for both sides.
Christopher (1991) et al consider relationship
marketing an approach that aligns marketing,customer service and quality, with a focus on
customer retention, an orientation on product benefit,
a long time-scale, a high customer service orientation,
a high customer commitment and a high customer
contact as well as on the notion that quality is the
concern of all.
Blomqvist (1993) et al. offer the following key
characteristics of relationship marketing: every
customer is considered as individual, activities of the
firm are predominantly directed towards existing
customers, it is based on interactions and dialogues
and the firm is trying to achieve profitability through
the decrease of customer turnover and the
strengthening of customer relationships.
Piercy (1996) refers to relationship marketing as the
attention being focused on making relationships and
partnerships the dominant model of how we manage
the interface between an organisation and the outside
world of the marketplace (e.g. Christopher et al.,
1992; McKenna, 1991), where the most important
relationship is with the customer, and the goal is a
satisfied customer and a productive, enduring
relationship (e.g. Gummesson, 1994).
Varey (following Drucker, 1973) defines
communication as the mode of the organisation, rather
than the means. The achievement of goals is seen as
occurring within relationships rather than in discrete
transactions of discrete individuals or groups. Internal
marketing seen as internal relationship management is
an integrative process within a system for fostering
positive working relationships in a developmental way
in a climate of co-operation and achievement. Such an
internal customer relationship management system has
a number of key features (adapted from Howe et al.,
1992):
• The “voice” of the customer is incorporated into
product/service decisions.
• Customer commitment is earned in a “social”
contract.
• There is open exchange of ideas for mutual gain.
• Employees develop a greater identification with
the corporation (just as the supplying corporationmust become more customer-oriented).
• Customers are involved in product design,
production and service.
• There is close partnership between suppliers and
customers.
• Customers are viewed as individual people and so
are “value” providers.
• There is continuous interaction and dialogue
between suppliers and customers.
• There is a focus on discovering, creating,
arousing and responding to customer needs.
•Relationships are viewed as enterprise assets.
• There is systematic collection and dissemination
of customer information (detailing and
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negotiating requirements, expectations, needs,attitudes and satisfaction).
• Communications in the internal market are
targeted through segmentation analysis
Also Sargeant (1998) identifies the integrative element
of communication and relationship management as
key since it shifts the emphasis in internal marketing
away from the organisation’s relationship with its
employees to the relationships that employees have
with each other. Enhancing the quality of integrated
customer-supplier relationships is thus seen as a key
role for marketing to perform.
Ballantyne (2000) concludes that internal marketing is
a strategy in action for developing relationships
between employees across internal organisational
boundaries challenging any internal activities that
need to be changed. The intention is to enhance the
quality of external marketing relationships. Further he
states (following Gummesson) that all marketing is
grounded in interactions within networks of
relationships, regardless of defining industry groups
and regardless of legal-rational company borders. On
this basis, all internal marketing is potentially
relationship marketing turned inward.
The strength of internal marketing is its intent coupled
with trusting employees and being trustworthy.
Interpersonal relationship development within internal
marketing, based on these fluxing behavioural
intentions, is interpreted as the evolution of a series of
cognitive re-appraisals along a personal path to
“customer consciousness”.
Lings (1999) links the applicability of internal
marketing approaches to the management of external
relationships. He examines the relation between
internal marketing, supply chain relationships and
service quality.
His arguments are based upon the view that the
internal market consists of groups communicating to
other groups within the organisation and internalmarketing is considered to be the process of creating
market conditions within the organisation to ensure
that internal customers’ wants and needs are met (e.g.
Bekkers and Van Haastrecht, 1993). He sees this
relationship between internal customers and their
internal suppliers as the focus of the internal
marketing effort.
By identifying internal customers and suppliers as part
of the internal marketing campaign, interactions
between internal suppliers and customers can be
identified and the communications associated with
these interactions can be examined to identify
possibilities for improvement. The value chain (Porter,
1985) is used to develop an internal customer structure
of the firm, which differentiates between different
types of internal customers. Morgan and Hunt (1994)
identify the need to manage relationships betweeninternal customers and their internal suppliers
simultaneously with the management of supply chain
relationships.
It appears that the management of supply chain
relationships may have important similarities to the
management of internal value chain relationships and
that the tools for the identification and management of
internal suppliers and their internal customers may
also be useful in the management of suppliers and
customer in the supply chain relationship. As each
department identifies its internal and external
customers and suppliers a relationship network is
identified. Lings concludes that such networks can be
expected to be complex and as such the responsibility
for the management of these interactions should be
that of the departmental manager rather than the
marketing function. In this way the whole organisation
becomes responsible for the creation and maintenance
of marketing relationships in which individuals in
different departments can physically relate to their
customers. This provides all individuals in the firm
with easily identifiable customers, both internal and
external, and a clear responsibility to maintain the
quality of the service, which is provided to those
customers.
Handfield and Nichols (1999) identify several
elements of trust between the firm and the supply
chain partner, which include reliability, competence,
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openness and the importance of the primary interface.
These factors in the development of trust between
supply chain partners are similar in nature to those
identified by Parasuraman (1988) et al . as important
components of service quality.
Grönroos (1994) calls the promise concept an integral
element of the relationship marketing approach. It
includes giving promises and thus persuading
customers as passive counterparts on the marketplace
to act in a given way in order to attract new customers
and initially build relationships. Fulfilling these
promises is equally important as means of achieving
customer satisfaction, retention of the customer base,
and long-term profitability. Like others Grönroosidentifies trust as another key element. “The resources
of the seller – personnel, technology and systems –
have to be used in such a manner that the customer’s
trust in the resources involved and, thus, in the firm
itself is maintained and strengthened”( Grönroos,
1990, p. 5).
Concluding from the literature reviewed it can be said
that in the current discussion of internal marketing
relationship marketing holds a dominant role in
operationalising the internal marketing concept. In
order to achieve customer orientation the traditional
concept of transactional marketing is no longer seen as
appropriate to fulfil this task. The multi-dimensional
interactions between internal and external customers
and suppliers can only be maintained and enhanced
through two-way communication on a personal level
rather than by a single marketing department. In this
sense internal marketing becomes a strategy for
relationship development in order to serve another
purpose: creating and circulating new knowledge
within networks of relationships.
5.2. Learning Organisation
Cahill (1995) focusses in his discussion on internal
marketing on another recently introduced concept.
This concept is called the “learning organisation”. The
introduction of the learning organisation concept to
internal marketing is to provide a recommended
method of organising, the better to provide services to
firm’s customers.
In identifying that a general definition of the learning
organisation its still missing he follows Watkins and
Marsick (1993) giving five statements about what a
learning organisation is:
1. The learning organisation is more than just a
collection of individuals who are learning.
2. The learning organisation demonstrates
organisational capacity for change.
3. The learning organisation accelerates
individual learning capacity but also
redefines organisational structure, culture, job design, and assumptions about the way
things are.
4. The learning organisation involves
widespread participation of employees – and
often customers – in decision making and
information sharing.
5. The learning organisation promotes systemic
thinking and building of organisational
memory.
Cahill (1995) develops the concept of the learning
organisation as starting from the point of
organisational learning and going forward in terms of
systems theory to create a new kind of organisation.
The difference between organisational learning and
the learning organisation is that only a learning
organisation consciously learns and that it understandsits culture as well as the impact that being a learning
organisation has on the firm’s culture and the
reciprocal impact that the culture has on the firm’s
ability to learn.
Thompson and Lutherans (1990) further state several
properties that emerge when relating behavioural and
learning principles to organisational culture:
• Culture is a generic term.
• Culture is learned.
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• Culture is transmitted through a pattern of
behavioural interactions.
• In an organisational setting, there are
multiple reinforcements and reinforcing
agents.
• Each individual carries predispositions that
shape his or her interpretation of the
organisational culture.
• A symbiotic relationship exists between the
reinforcing agent and target.
• Changing an established culture is difficult.
Cahill believes that the metamorphosis into a learning
organisation is a necessary step in the correct
performance of internal marketing as a tool helping to
implement internal marketing to get the organisation
to provide its services to its customers better, with
more competence and understanding of who the
customers are and what they want. In his opinion it is
“the culmination of all the empowerment and human
factors design or organisations, the jump from theory
X to theory Y to learning organisations”(Cahill, 1995
p.32).
Dixon (1992) states that organisational learning may
have become the critical competence of the 1990s.
Halal (1996) suggests that organisational learning may
merely be the rebirth of organisation development, in
using team learning to encourage change from the
bottom of the hierarchy of authority. This is needed to
build effective teams, but does not recognise the
growing need to transform organisations into
entrepreneurial, democratic systems (Halal et al.,
1993; Halal, 1996) which are able to learn about the
current world by unlearning outmoded assumptions
based on past experience. The parallel learning
structure allows people to work in a completely
different way from that of the formal organisation. It
is specifically designed to solve problems, and allows
change and innovation to be managed without
disrupting the formal structures and mechanisms
required for routine and repetitive tasks. Managers and
workers are assigned to tasks within a different
context. This provides workers with a chance to affect
the formal organisation, and evidence shows that this
leads to increased work satisfaction and task
effectiveness (Zand, 1981).
Varey (1999) contributes that a broader concept of
internal marketing requires that a process, or meta-
structure, perspective is taken for organisational
development through learning in a consciously created
interactive communication system, i.e. a social system
which is not solely concerned with economic
transactions.
Ballantyne (2000) defines the common denominator inall internal marketing perspectives as knowledge
renewal differentiating it in two forms. The first is
knowledge generation, meaning the creation or
discovery of new knowledge for use within the
organisation, with external market intelligence as
inputs. The second is knowledge circulation,
representing the diffusion of knowledge to all that can
benefit, through the chain of internal customers to
external customers.
He develops his model of knowledge renewal in three
steps. First he depicts the main modes of learning
activity. Second, he reconstructs these as a continuing
process for knowledge renewal. Third, he matches
both of these with the intentions that permit an insight
into the participants’ behaviour. Thus he sets a general
framework for internal marketing that might be tested
in any organisational setting.
Four distinct modes for learning activity are revealed
(following Ballantyne):
• Energising: learning how to work together on
useful marketplace goals that are broader than
the bounds of any individual job description.Following Katz and Kahn (1966) Ballantyne
understands energy renewal as coming directlyfrom the organisational activity itself.
• Code breaking: learning how to apply personal
resources of “know-how” in working together to solve customer problems, create new
opportunities and change internal procedures.
Organisations “learn” through individual staff
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members. The first steps are often intuitive; whatwill work cannot really be known until tested in
action. However, testing personal know-how in agroup setting is a necessary part of checking out
the wider application of personal experience and,
in doing so, gaining confidence to challengeentrenched internal policies and procedures.
Clearly, working to discover and uncover
operational solutions to customer problems iscustomer consciousness in action.
• Authorising: learning to make choices between
options on a cost-benefit basis and gaining
approvals from the appropriate line authority.Re-designing processes that cross over
departmental borders also means learning anorganisation-specific set of skills in representing a
case for change. A well-documented argument for changing the particular process or policy is
necessary, as is an understanding of the broader
context in which it operates. This also requiresadvocacy and listening skills and, to some degree,
the support of powerful others.• Diffusing: learning how to circulate and share
new knowledge across managerial domains in
new ways. The diffusion of new knowledge ismore than one-way message making. Many new
ways of working can be tested and negotiatedthrough dialogue. A trustworthy management
would seem to be the secret of gaining staff commitment. However, any large organisation
have hierarchical and specialist divisions thatconstrain interaction across internal borders. The
effect is that these become barriers to trust and
commitment if left unattended.
To connect the four learning activity modes to the
concept of knowledge renewal Ballantyne draws
particularly on the insights of Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995). He discusses each phase once more linking
them to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s four-phase theory of
knowledge creation:
• Energising: developing common knowledge: This
phase is “energised” by the sharing of tacitknowledge, a tacit to tacit process, thusamplifying common knowledge under conditions
where trust is present.
• Code breaking: discovering new knowledge: This
phase is characterised by interaction in the
discovery of new knowledge, a tacit to explicit process, necessarily supported by trust between
the participants at the start, and a developingmutual obligation to see the task through.
• Authorising: obtaining cost-benefit knowledge:
This phase is characterised by bringing together
explicit knowledge on costs and benefits, an
explicit to explicit process, where rationalitynonetheless is informed by a sense of obligationand trust.
• Diffusing: integrating knowledge: This phase is
characterised by the integration of new
knowledge into the working ways of theorganisation, an explicit to tacit process, in which
the store of organisational knowledge is renewed,at the explicit level, enhanced by personal
knowledge and commitment.
Ballantyne introduces the third connection as key to
the sustainability of the other two. This is the
spontaneous community of participants, shaped within
and by a supportive network of relationships. He sees
the strength of internal marketing as its intent coupled
with trusting employees and being trustworthy.
Organisational knowledge is renewed through
interaction and dialogue. “Energising” and “diffusing”
involve new learning behaviours and thus require the
co-operation of HRM, and “code breaking” and
“authorising” need support from operational
departments.
Senge et al (1994) define learning in organisations as
the continuous testing of experience, and the
transformation of that experience into knowledge –
accessible to the whole organisation, and relevant to
its core purpose. Senge (1993) identifies four groups
of concepts which need attending to in order to build
an organisational foundation for the learning
organisation: philosophy; attitudes and beliefs; skills
and capabilities; and tools. He beliefs that developing
this foundation and the new organisational skills and
capabilities which need to flow from them may be the
“highest-leverage area for creating lasting change”
( Senge, 1993, p. 21).
Senge further focusses tightly on the necessity of
having a shared vision throughout the organisation.
providing the focus and energy for learning.
The literature reviewed provided so far for the
development of the academic discourse on IM, its
main pillars and the current influences on the
discussion. The last chapter is concerned with the
implications for further research on IM identified inthe literature reviewed.
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6. Implications for further research
Suitable research should assist the development of
terminology for a single clear understanding of the
underlying principles of internal marketing among
managers and academics alike. The extent of
acceptance of “internal marketing” as a management
philosophy by managers should be evaluated and if
they recognise their own role in providing excellent
service to their employees?
Varey (1995) suggest to conduct research in
organisations which do not have a strong marketing
orientation to test the applicability of IM in “non-
marketing” companies. Further he points at a number
of implementation options being defined for strategic
plans ( Nutt, 1989) and raises the question to what
extent internal marketing can enable the various
tactics to succeed and if there are other tactics
available to the strategic manager as part of a strategic
approach?
Rafiq et al (2000) prefer the development of a scale to
measure employee empowerment in order to have acomplete set of scales for developing a reliable
measure of IM scale. In their opinion this would be a
considerable step forward in IM research. This
measure can then be used to assess the claims made
for IM, for instance regarding service quality,
customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and
profitability.
Lings (2000) focuses on developing a full
understanding of the internal customer structure of the
supply chain partners and identifying the inter and
intra-firm supplier customer interactions which occur
within this structure.
Following on from the modelling of the supply chain
firms the propositions developed can be tested.
Service expectations can be measured using similar
methodology to that used by Parasuraman et al. (1985)
in their identification of the elements of service
quality.
However the ten dimensions of service quality which
are important to the external customer (Parasuraman
et al., 1985) cannot be assumed to be the same as
those which are important to the supply chain or
internal customer. Once the important service quality
dimensions for each internal and supply chain
customer have been identified it will be possible to
examine these and explore the propositions that they
differ according to the nature of the supplier-customer
interaction.
References
Ballantyne, D.F. (1991a), “ Internal marketing, collaborationand motivation in service quality management”, working paper No. SWP 23/91 , Cranfield School of
Management.Ballantyne, D.F. (1991b), “ Coming to grips with service
intangibles using quality management techniques”,working paper No. SWP 19/91 , Cranfield School of
Management.
Ballantyne, D. (2000), “ Internal Relationship Marketing: A
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