Internal marketing for engaging employees on the corporate responsibility journey

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore whether internal marketing could be a powerful tool for engaging employees on the corporate responsibility journey.Design/methodology/approach: In the absence of empirical work linking internal marketing efforts in organizations and employee engagement in corporate responsibility issues, a conceptual approach based on literature review is carried out to determine the existing possibilities provided by internal marketing to enhance corporate responsibility. Findings:Reflexion from the extant literature indicates that, because employee engagement matters, internal responsibility should be put first.The internal marketing umbrella, including "selling internally" the idea of responsibility, facilitating internal communication, enhancing corporate volunteering or the possibility to become a social intrapreneur, could help to align employees' needs with corporate responsibility goals. Practical implications:The results suggest that managers must ensure that internal aspects of management, such as internal communication and employee commitment are taken into account in order to get success in corporate responsibility issues. Managers need to be more proactive trying Intangible Capital -http://dx.doi.org/10.3926/ic.305 -276 -to introduce the marketing function in human capital issues. Understanding employees' wants and needs and selling internally responsibility goals would make external efforts in developing a responsible strategy much more likely to succeed. Originality/value: Reflecting the literature which highlights the importance of internal marketing, we pay particular attention to their role on promoting corporate responsibility internally. The results indicate that while organizations strive to achieve corporate responsibility goals, it is expected that effectiveness will be greater among organizations using internal marketing tools for this purpose. To the best of our knowledge is the first time this relationship has been academically discussed offering recommendations for practitioners.

The Effect of the Internal Side of Social Responsibility on Firm Competitive Success in the Business Services Industry

“…This first factor is aligned with previous work in Internal Marketing [17,59] where employees are considered clients, internal clients, and a very important stakeholder to attend. Job creation, training, conciliation and equal opportunities and dynamic mechanisms of employees' participation in management decisions fostering dialogue form part of this composite factor.…”

“…In this respect, some authors have highlighted the importance of the culture of responsibility as the first step to become a responsible business [17,60].…”

Employee attitudes towards corporate social responsibility: a study on gender, age and educational level differences

“…By optimising their CSR, companies can also build long‐term employee trust (European Commission, ; Sanchez‐Hernandez & Grayson, ). Indeed, according to Hansen et al (, p. 33), employee trust is an “outcome of organizational CSR perceptions that may shape employee attitudes and behaviors.” Employee trust, in turn, is found to be positively related to employee organisational citizenship behaviour (Dirks & Ferrin, ) and employee commitment (Farrell, ; Morgan & Hunt, ).…”

Responsible Job Design Based on the Internal Social Responsibility of Local Governments

“…Thomas et al [81] argued that communication plays an essential role in the development of trust within any organisation, and Martin-García and Conci [82] highlighted that informal participation and communication are considered as frequent HPWP in countries such as Spain. Going further, we can affirm that effective internal communication enables the success of teambuilding and teamwork [83]. Recently, teamwork has been getting more interest, assuming that integrated teamwork is more important than individual work in reaching organizational goals [84].…”