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This paper discusses findings from an exploratory study concerning internal marketing in the UK retail bank industry. In order to enhance efficiency and provide motivation to employees many UK banks have adopted internal marketing. The paper adopts the approach of first defining the generic research area, and then describing the research approach. It is concerned with first identifying the rhetoric of internal marketing as employed in UK banks, and second with exploring the practice of reality of internal marketing as practiced within UK banks. The paper is grounded in Mason's view that theoretical positions or data explanations move from the particular context of internal marketing views and expand within banks to the general theoretical contribution to be made. Findings are explored via two extant relationships and three anomalies based on the data analysis. Evidence from the study suggests that internal marketing is being taken seriously but in such a way as to be managerially, not employee, oriented. At best, internal marketing within this industry is regarded as a form of window dressing or part of the trappings of marketing, rather than having any substantive base or rationale insofar as employees are concerned.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how internal capital markets mitigate financial constraints and enhance firms' willingness to engage in R&D projects.

The study uses panel data relating to 2,095 publicly traded firms in the Chinese A-share market for the period 2007–2019. The tobit regression method is applied to explore R&D investment–cash flow sensitivity of group affiliates, while the systematic generalised method of moments and dynamic ordinary least squares models are adopted to address the endogeneity problem in the robustness test.

This study finds that firms affiliated with business groups demonstrate lower R&D investment–cash flow sensitivity than non-affiliated firms do and that R&D investments are significantly influenced by the cash reserves of other group members. In terms of financing channels, this study demonstrates that group firms use internal cash and equity financing to support other members' R&D investments, while debt financing does not influence member firms' R&D investments. In addition, this study discovers that R&D spending harms the stock and operating performance of some group members.

The findings of this study enable business groups to focus on resource allocation and investment efficiency.

Although prior studies indicate that internal capital markets can enhance R&D spending, few studies reveal the mechanisms through which internal capital markets benefit R&D. This study uses a unique methodology to test the ability of the internal capital market to enhance R&D spending. In addition, group firms use internal cash flow and equity financing to support partners' R&D projects.

This paper aims to re-examine the nature, aim and scope of internal market orientation (IMO) and introduce it as a value creation mechanism for the firm’s internal market. A service-dominant logic (SDL)-based perspective of the IMO notion is advanced, and the key steps and phases for value creation in the internal market are outlined.

This conceptual paper bridges the IM discourse with the SDL literature, and the latter’s implications for internal marketing theory and practice are discussed.

Drawing on the premises of the SDL, IMO re-surfaces as an interconnected operant resource that can be enacted through performing three sets of activities central in the value creation process for internal stakeholders (i.e. value-identifying, value-generating and value-enhancing activities). These groups of relevant value-enabling activities required for IMO enactment are extensively discussed and their role in the value creation process is scrutinized.

This conceptual paper aspires to provide a managerially relevant understanding of value creation in the firm’s internal market. An SDL-driven understanding of IMO is advanced setting it as a value creation mechanism appealing to a wider range of organizations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between internal marketing practices, employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention in the foodservice industry.

The target population was employees who were currently working at a restaurant in the USA. All respondents were recruited from different states for the generalization of the study results. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the measurement model, and subsequently, structural equation modeling tested the proposed model.

Three internal marketing practices – vision, development and rewards – were good indicators for predicting employee job satisfaction, and two internal marketing practices – development and rewards – in addition to job satisfaction were significant predictors for employee organizational commitment. Finally, the findings indicated that job satisfaction and affective commitment had a significant impact on lowering employee turnover intention.

In further research, more internal marketing practices – such as employee motivation, customer orientation, sharing information, employee empowerment – can be added to the model to increase employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Foodservice operators should focus on internal marketing practices to have satisfied employees who, in turn, are more likely to deliver high service quality to customers.

This study has not only extended the influential scope of the internal marketing theory to organizational commitment, but has also proposed the antecedents of organizational commitment (i.e. internal marketing practices and employee job satisfaction) and clarified the relationships among them.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a global measure of internal marketing on bank employee job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank. In addition, the authors assessed the subsequent impact of job satisfaction and employee commitment on employee-bank identification. The dual mediating role of job satisfaction and employee commitment in the internal marketing-employee bank identification relationship was also explored.

Using self-administered questionnaires, the authors collected data from a convenience sample of Saudi Arabian bank employees attending training at the Institute of Banking, Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the predicted structural relationships.

Internal marketing has highly significant positive effects on job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank. These in turn influence employee bank identification. Internal marketing also impacts employee bank identification indirectly through its impact on both job satisfaction and employee commitment.

Bank management needs to take a holistic approach to internal marketing and ensure that they create an environment where employers will be satisfied and committed to the point that they will feel proud to be associated with the organization.

The study uses a global measure and provides evidence of the dual mediating effects of job satisfaction and employee commitment to the bank in the internal marketing-employee bank identification relationship. This evidence is unearthed in the Saudi Arabian banking sector, characterized by conventional and Islamic banks.

The paper focuses on services marketing implementation synthesizing previous knowledge from the fields of internal and external marketing. Although academic debate over the modeling of internal and external market orientation has lately emerged, services marketing literature lacks a relevant theoretical foundation.

Following a qualitative research design applied to the tourism sector, in‐depth interviews were conducted at three different levels (managers, employees and customers). In total, 37 hotel managers, 46 employees and 42 guests participated in the process of capturing the essence of the fragile equilibrium between internal and external marketing adoption.

Findings from the content analysis were consistent with the literature, unveiling an important number of elements, which formulate the components of the balanced market orientation, namely: market orientation adoption, internal marketing implementation and systematic monitoring of the service delivery process.

Highlighting the importance of interrelations and modeling the underlying constructs, the study merges together different research streams from the extant literature. Nevertheless, the relations between the components of balanced market orientation have yet to be examined and validated.

In light of the qualitative findings, the study delves into the main pillars of integrated marketing philosophy, where the external focus on the customer is a sine qua non. Services marketing implementation is delineated into: applying internal marketing practices; periodically assessing employees’ perceptions; adopting market‐oriented behaviour; and measuring its impact on customers.

This study aims to explore the extent to which internal marketing influences employees’ perceived ability to deliver service quality in the Islamic banking industry in Oman. Additionally, the influence of perceived service quality on perceived customer satisfaction is established.

Data was obtained from retail banking branch employees at the customer front line of Islamic banks in Oman using electronic and person-administered surveys, and 272 responses were deemed suitable for data analysis. The measurement and structural models were measured through structural equation modelling.

The findings show that internal promotion, internal process and internal purpose are enablers of employees’ perceived ability to deliver service quality in the Islamic banking industry of Oman. In addition, service quality was found to have a strong positive influence on perceived customer satisfaction in Islamic banks.

This study demonstrates that internal product, internal price, internal promotion, internal process and internal purpose are influencers of service quality, and the latter has a direct relationship with perceived customer satisfaction in Islamic banking.

The findings can guide the Islamic banking sector in Oman on how internal marketing can foster service quality, ultimately leading to positive perceived customer satisfaction experiences.

The internal marketing mix model is predominately a Western model, which has been tested primarily in mature Western markets. This study reflects on ten internal marketing mix elements, which have been tested for the enablement of service quality and perceived customer satisfaction in Oman.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implementation of the marketing concept within both the internal (internal market) and external environments in the context of the local public sector. It also aims to examine the impact of market orientation (MO) on employees' job‐related attitudes (job satisfaction and organisational commitment (OC)) and organisational performance (OP).

Researchers take a methodological approach by using a survey method. Structural equation modelling is employed to analyse the data collected from a sample of municipality executive board members in order to test the causal relationships proposed in the research model.

The results of this empirical study demonstrate that internal marketing implementation has an important effect in fostering market‐oriented behaviours of local public organisations. The effect of MO on both job‐related attitudes and OP was also empirically supported. However, the paper's findings do not support the hypotheses that increased levels of job satisfaction and OC enhance OP.

Local public sector managers should recognise the importance of allocating resources to ensure the gathering and dissemination of and responsiveness to market information in both internal and external environments: this will likely enhance job satisfaction, OC and OP.

Despite claims that the implementation of marketing in the internal environment is vital for external marketing success, this relationship has not yet been extensively discussed in the literature. The paper's results provide quantitative evidence to support this relationship. Also, this paper offers additional research on the role of market‐oriented behaviours on job satisfaction, OC and OP, presenting interesting challenges for further research among practitioners and academics.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and propose an integrated model of marketing knowledge from a tacit knowledge management perspective. This paper further aims at developing a linkage between explicit knowledge perspective (internal and external marketing) and tacit knowledge orientation of an organization, leading to improved business success.

This paper develops a conceptual model showing the integration of the internal, tacit and explicit knowledge perspectives that results in improved business success. The proposed model and associated propositions are drawn from the synthesis of relevant knowledge and marketing literature.

Five major associated propositions are offered in the paper, which inform both scholars and practitioners about what constitutes a holistic market orientation and how organizations can achieve business success by adopting both an internal and external orientation to tacit and explicit knowledge management.

The model makes an original contribution to theoretical and organizational marketing management knowledge. It does this by extending the conceptual and operational boundaries of existing models of internal and external marketing, aimed at helping organizations achieve competitive advantage and business success.

The majority of research pertaining to internal marketing (IM) is conceptual and still remains so even at present. The lack of widely accepted definitions of the IM concept and a relevant valid measure has lead to increased attempts by academia to investigate the relative concepts and measures. The purpose of this paper is to examine a synthesis of IM and investigates its effect on business performance in a retail context.

The context of this paper is within supermarket chains in Greece with nation wide coverage. A survey is designed and implemented using the branch managers.

SEM analysis indicates five dimensions of the IM construct: formal interaction, reward systems, feedback, internal procedures and policies and internal customer orientation (ICO). Retailers seem to adopt in an embryonic stage a concept of IM. IM indeed has a positive effect on business performance.

Single key informant, single context of the paper are considerations when examining research limitations.

The embryonic stage of adopting and implementing IM within supermarket chains illustrates a certain manner of managing the internal customer; centralisation of procedures and tactics. Even if the concept of IM is partially exploited, the respective organisational behaviours clearly have a positive impact on both financial and non‐financial aspects of retail performance, thus revealing their importance.

This paper contributes to the rare empirical investigation of the IM notion in the firm and provides evidence on both its synthesis and its impact on business performance. The authors synthesize the concepts of internal market and ICOs providing a new approach to IM. Construct and research propositions have been axiomatic and in an only conceptual context until recently.