Linking Internal Marketing with customer outcomes

This study explores how the adoption of an internal marketing (IM) program in a retail banking setting enhances some positive employee behaviours that promote customer perceived service quality. A multilevel research design is adopted which draws evidence from branch managers, employees and customers in order to investigate whether branch manager’s adoption of an Internal Marketing philosophy affects front-line employee responsiveness to the firm’s internal marketing strategies and their levels of motivation, empowerment and organizational identification respectively. The equity theory and the social exchange theory constitute the theoretical background of this study. Results indicate that manager’s IM adoption can enhance employee adoption of IM and raises their levels of motivation, empowerment and organizational identification. The moderating role of manager-employee dissimilarity is also discussed. Finally, findings confirm that employee motivation, empowerment and organizational identification affect customer perceptions of service quality. This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/51419/. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.