A holistic management tool for measuring internal marketing activities

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to synthesise internal marketing measures in two service settings across both Western and Eastern backgrounds. Well established views of internal marketing have emerged with more than 200 papers on the topic. To date, no clear accepted measure for the concept has emerged. The developed scale provides a new way of thinking drawing together a diverse range of measures to deliver a practical measure offering marketing managers a diagnostic tool to measure the degree that internal marketing has been applied (or not) inside their organisation.

Design/methodology/approach

Conceptual and operational definitions of internal marketing were analysed to generate an item pool for testing. Generated items were then tested in one higher education organisation (n = 205) and in the tourism and hospitality industry with Australian and Taiwanese employees (n = 458) using both English and Traditional Chinese survey versions. The data were analysed with SPSS 19.0 and AMOS 19.0. Reliability analysis was first undertaken to assess the hypothesised internal marketing factor structure followed by confirmatory factor analysis.

Findings

A 16-item, three-factor structure was obtained for internal marketing. This research suggests that internal marketing practice is a three-dimensional concept ideally consisting of internal market research, training and communication activities. The findings suggest that further research may be warranted to further expand academic definitions of internal marketing to encompass the varied activities undertaken by practising internal marketers.

Originality/value

This study provides a new measure of internal marketing practice for use in future that captures the majority of the activities undertaken by internal marketing practitioners.

Citation

Huang, Y.-T. and Rundle-Thiele, S. (2015), "A holistic management tool for measuring internal marketing activities", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 6/7, pp. 571-584. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-03-2015-0112