Understanding the impact of internal marketing practices on both employees ' and managers ' organizational commitment in elderly care homes
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to unfold the relationship between the antecedents of employee and manager commitment, using internal marketing (IM) practices, in elderly care homes.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on survey data drawn from elderly care homes in Finland, the authors tested several literature driven hypotheses of how IM practices (internal value exchange, internal communication and training) relate with employee and manager commitment. Hence, the authors compare the organizational commitment of two groups. Additionally, the authors tested the moderating role of public residence on these relationships.
Findings
The study revealed that there are differences in the antecedents to employee and manager commitment in terms of internal value exchange. This is an important extension to the literature of employee and management commitment in which the antecedents to management commitment, especially, are under-investigated, and where the relationship between the antecedents of the two types of commitment are not studied.
Practical implications
While different emphases on IM programs for employees and managers must be implemented in order to re-create work environments that could lead to improved service provision, the authors suggest that facilitating open and honest communication and exchanging values in care homes is a crucial step for improving service quality and employee and manager retention.
Originality/value
This study has high value to both the literature and practice as high-service quality can be provided when both employee’s and manager’s commitments are in place, and without understanding the differing antecedents and their relationships, it is hard to establish both types of commitment in an organization. The authors believe that this new insight is useful in improving the service quality and employee and manager retention of organizations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express the gratitude to all the managers and employees of Finnish elderly care homes who responded to the questionnaire. Moreover, the authors would like to thank Dr Helena Soini (from the Department of Social Services and Health Care of Helsinki), Mekhail Mustak (from University of Turku) for their excellent comments on the earlier versions of the manuscript and Professor Niina nummela (from University of Turku) for her support and advices that she gave on this project.Finally, the authors would like to thank the two reviewers who provided excellent comments to improve the manuscript.
Citation
Bermúdez-González, G., Sasaki, I. and Tous-Zamora, D. (2016), "Understanding the impact of internal marketing practices on both employees ' and managers ' organizational commitment in elderly care homes", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 28-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-09-2014-0216
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited