Effects of Internal Marketing and Its Components on Organisational Level Customer Orientation: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

A customer orientation which is considered the most important aspect of market orientation has been found to be a prerequisite to superior organizational performance hence developing a customer orientation is key to ensuring long-term performance. Internal marketing has been established in literature as a prerequisite to developing a customer orientation in the organization. Previous studies have also provided empirical evidence of an existing relationship between internal marketing and market orientation. Therefore, drawing from the works of Gounaris (2006) and Lings and Greenley (2005) who conceptualized internal marketing as internal market orientation; and Dawes (2000), and using data obtained from the banking and insurance industries, the study aimed to examine the relationship between the dimensions of internal market orientation and customer orientation. It was found that all dimensions of internal market orientation had positive relationships with customer orientation. Information dissemination was found to be the greatest contributor to customer orientation while responsiveness was shown to be the least contributor. The basic premise behind the internal marketing (IMO) – customer orientation relationship is the suggested interaction between the employees’ feelings of being valued and the translation of such feelings and attitudes to their services towards the customer; it was concluded that employees perceived the organization’s value for them, more from the process of generating and disseminating internal market information, than the actions taken in response to internal market information which in turn would lead to higher levels of customer consciousness.

Keywords: Internal Marketing, Customer Orientation