How organizational citizenship behavior mediates between internal marketing and service quality

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of internal marketing on service quality and the mediating role of OCB in their relationship. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 162 random samples of the customers and employees of the Greater Tehran Gas Company were taken. The applied research methodology is based on survey design techniques, specifically structural equations modelling. To test the model questionnaire was designed, applied and then analyzed. Findings -Findings clearly demonstrate that internal marketing actions can have a direct, meaningful and positive effect on organizational citizenship behaviours. Furthermore, the conceptual model shows that organizational citizenship behaviours act as a mediator between internal marketing and service quality.Research limitations/implications -The present study does have a number of methodological limitations that suggest areas for future research. First, the sample was from a public company, and this unique setting may limit the external validity of the findings. Second, the country in which the authors tested the hypothesis is an Islamic country with different cultural values from western countries and this fact might limit the generalization of the findings. But the authors believe that the proposed model and results of this research can aid service organization to offer better service quality to both their internal and external customers. Originality/value -The paper may be of high value to researchers and managers in Marketing and Human Resource Management scopes. Results of this research have valuable guideline that can have tangible outcome for organization.

The Effect of Internal Marketing on Organizational Citizenship Behavior of Academic Staff in Higher Educational Institutions

“…In empirical researches performed in different sectors, there are evidences showing positive and significant relationship between IM and OCB [3,12,26,27]. The results of our study we performed in the higher education context show that IM effects OCB significantly and positively.…”

“…Due to IM applications of managements, academic staffs gain various achievements. As a result of displaying OCBs by academic staffs, higher educational institutions offer better quality internal and external services [27]. For example, academic staffs reveal more synergy with their colleagues, increase the students' satisfaction levels by providing a better education, and perform more scientific research and publication activities.…”

Internal marketing, employee customer‐oriented behaviors, and customer behavioral responses

“…Concretely, a prominent research stream of internal marketing consists of the studies examining attitudinal mediators between internal marketing and external customer‐related outcomes. Recently, a few studies have garnered their interest in behavioral mediators, but this group of studies centered on organizational citizenship behavior that includes employee behaviors directed at other organizational members like coworkers (Awan et al., ; Ghorbani & Mostafavi, ; SeyedJavadin, Rayej, Yazdani, Estiri, & Aghamiri, ). To our knowledge, only one welcome study by Bansal et al.…”

Internal Marketing and Customer Loyalty: A Dyadic Analysis

“…In order to test the proposed hypothesis, two self-administered questionnaires were developed to collect data from employee-customer dyad. This methodology has been previously used by various authors in their study of internal marketing [6] [49]. Both questionnaires were distributed in five big cities of Pakistan which are Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad.…”

“…Hogg [4] asserted that internal marketing helped in developing organizational commitment among the employees and internal marketing was considerably linked to the affective component of organizational commitment [5]. Internal marketing also helps organizations to develop organizational citizenship behavior among employee [6]. So, if internal marketing is successfully implemented in organization, its employees develop very positive attitude towards work and put their maximum efforts to get the job done.…”