Internal Marketing: Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

Internal marketing has been an area of interest for the past few decades, and the rapid growth on internal marketing literature has evolved the concept further. However, this theoretical advancement has not been able to empirically strengthen the concept, and there exists disagreement on the key components of internal marketing. Thus, this article endeavours to identify the dimensions of internal marketing by probing in the extant literature. In addition, the aim of the article was to develop a robust and valid instrument for measuring internal marketing. Data were collected from qualitative study and from 154 employees of financial service sector. Analyses revealed 11 significant dimensions of internal marketing, namely, senior leadership and vision, inter-functional coordination, internal communications, organization structure and changes, staffing, training and development, incentive systems, physical environment, strategic rewards and empowerment. Construct validity and reliability were empirically ascertained along with the determination of the good fit for the proposed model. The study highlighted the difference between strategic rewards and incentive systems as perceived by the employees. In addition, organization structure and change factors were tested to be significant, providing empirical evidence of their vital role in developing and implementing internal marketing practices in service firms. The article concludes by discussing the possible implications and future research avenues.