A study of employee perceptions of internal marketing in relation to their organizational commitment in the higher education sector of Australian Capital Territory and Southern New South Wales

Abstract

The birth of Internal Marketing has its roots in the 1980’s and its purpose was to provide continuous and consistent satisfying service quality. The term Internal Marketing has been derived from the word ‘internal customers’ which was first used by Berry (1981). Internal Marketing deals with considering employees as internal customers and continuously selling their job to them to encourage better performance and better customer satisfaction. This thesis examines the depth of understanding and the applicability of Internal Marketing in the higher education sector which is not a conventional service industry. It also focuses on the relationship between perceptions of Internal Marketing and Organizational Commitment of the employees in the higher education sector. Many researchers use the definitions of Internal Marketing which focus too exclusively on service firms. Although there has been a continued blurring of lines between service and manufacturing firms in recent years, with more manufacturing firms talking about how good their ‘service’ has become, there are differences between service firms and others (Cahill,1995). It is important to consider other organizations, like education, as providing services as well. While considering Education as a service provider, the marketer’s focus has been mainly on the external customers who in the case of higher education are the students. Considering and studying Internal Marketing in the higher education context is one of the main purposes of this research. The results of this study will help the Internal Marketers to understand and develop this concept which can cater for the universities. The results will also help the management staff of the universities in the context of raising awareness in Internal Marketing. Secondly, the perceptions of Internal Marketers are as important as the perceptions of the receivers of the Internal Marketing. This study uses a cross-sectional design of perceptions of both the appliers and the receivers of Internal Marketing. Collecting data from two different groups of respondents gives a comprehensive understanding of the concept of Internal Marketing in a different context as mentioned in the literature review. This is a mixed methods study using the convergence model and data collected were 18 interviews and 181 surveys. The interviews were done with the Management staff and the surveys were administered to both Management and the Teaching staff. The qualitative results reveal that Internal Marketing is still at its infant stage and needs development in the universities. The quantitative data reveals that the difference between the perceptions of Internal Marketing between Management and Teaching staff is non-significant. The results also show that Internal Marketing has a weak correlation with the Organizational Commitment of the Employees in the universities.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Supervisor	Raechel JOHNS (Supervisor) & Doug Davies (Supervisor)