The effect of internal marketing, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior on the market orientation of specialized banks (case study of Isfahan Cooperative Bank)

Dissertation for Master's degree (M.A)

Abstract

The success of service organizations in line with market-oriented activities requires that employees' commitment is guaranteed. One of the ways to achieve such a commitment is to implement internal marketing programs. Considering the importance of internal marketing and market orientation, the present study tries to examine the relationship between the two variables with regard to the mediating role of commitment and organizational citizenship behavior and to answer the question of how factors such as internal marketing, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior affect the success of market orientation. In this regard, 118 employees of Isfahan Cooperative Development Bank were also selected as a statistical sample. The required data were collected through questionnaire tools (four internal marketing questionnaires of Forman and Money (1995), organizational commitment of Allen and Meier (1991), citizenship behavior of Oregon and Kanowski (1996) and market orientation of Naror and Slater (1990)). The face and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by using the expert opinions of the professors and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by using the Cronbach's alpha calculation method. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS19 and Lisrel 8 software. The results of this analysis also showed a positive and direct relationship between internal marketing and citizenship commitment and behavior, and citizenship commitment and behavior with market orientation. Also, the relationship between internal marketing and market orientation - commitment and citizenship behavior - and the mediating role of the variable commitment and citizenship behavior in the relationship between internal marketing and market orientation were not confirmed.

Key words: market orientation, internal marketing, organizational commitment, citizenship behavior, commercial banks

Chapter 1

Overview of the research

) Introduction:

The current world is accelerating It is increasingly industrialized. This increases the necessity of innovation, flexibility, productivity and accountability for the survival and success of organizations. One of the keys to success in competitive markets is to use creative marketing plans to observe customer needs and market trends at any moment (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). On the other hand, psychologists emphasize that employees of organizations should act beyond their official duties. Due to the abundant and face-to-face interaction with the customer, as well as the nature of the service, this concept is more important in service sectors (Garg and Rastogi, 2006). Therefore, "organizational citizenship behavior[1]" and "organizational commitment[2]" are known as skills that can help employees in this way. Citizenship behavior refers to individual behaviors that arise from the insight of individuals and, in addition to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization's performance, are not directly and explicitly encouraged through the formal reward system (Burns and Carpenter, 2008). Organizational commitment refers to a state in which an employee is identified with a specific organization and its goals and is interested in being considered a member of that organization (Hasanqoli et al., 2011). Ahmed and Rafiq [3] (2000) by reviewing various studies showed that internal marketing is a way to solve problems and problems related to employees of organizations and provide quality services by them, so that internal marketing activities through influencing and motivating employees increase their organizational commitment, improve the competitiveness of the organization and promote competencies. The variables and scope of the research will be discussed. 1-2) Statement of the problem: In the literature and marketing operations, market orientation is also of special importance and several approaches have been proposed to explain this concept.  According to Naror and Slater [4] (1990), market orientation is the beating heart of modern marketing management and strategy, and a business that increases its market orientation will improve its market performance. Market orientation is an organizational culture that, with maximum efficiency and effectiveness, provides the necessary behaviors to create superior value for customers and, as a result, continuous superior performance for business. They consider market orientation to include three behavioral components - customer orientation [5], competition orientation [6] and inter-task coordination [7] and two decision criteria [8] - long-term focus [9] and profitability [10].

Lafferty and his colleagues [11] (2001) have tried to combine the common components of five decision-making approaches (Shapiro, 1988); market intelligence (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990); cultural approach (Narver and Slater, 1990); strategic approach (Ruekert, 1992); and customer orientation (Deshpande et al, 1993); achieve a hybrid approach. In this review, they have discussed market orientation as a cultural and managerial phenomenon to achieve competitive advantage. They introduce the four general areas agreed upon in the reviewed approaches as follows: emphasis on the customer, the importance of shared knowledge (information), inter-task coordination of marketing activities and communications, and responding to market activities by taking appropriate action.

Market orientation, whether as a culture or as a behavior, cannot emerge without organizational commitment, and not only high-level managers but also employees within the organization must have this commitment. Therefore, the success of service organizations in line with market-oriented activities requires that employee commitment is guaranteed. One of the ways to achieve such commitment is the implementation of internal marketing programs (Caruana and Calleya, 1998). Internal marketing is one of the marketing topics that was proposed two decades ago as a way to solve problems and problems related to the employees of organizations and provide quality services by them. Related studies in this field indicate that internal marketing activities through influencing and motivating employees have increased their organizational commitment, improve the organization's competitiveness and promote competencies (Ahmed and Rafiq, 2002).

Internal marketing is the attraction, development, motivation, and continuity of quality that can be offered to employees through jobs as a product and satisfying their needs. In other words, internal marketing is a philosophy. It is the joint relationship and contract between customers and employees (internal customers) of the organization (Cahill, 1995). In other words, internal marketing is considered as an academic, scientific and commercial knowledge in the field of improving the level of satisfaction of customers and employees. The purpose of internal marketing is to ensure the satisfaction of the organization's employees and to develop the quality of products and services in order to achieve the satisfaction of the organization's external customers, which is a process that flows from internal customers to the organization's external customers (Abd al-Baghi, 2013).

Studies conducted in this field indicate the existence of a positive relationship between the satisfaction of the organization's internal customers (employees) and the job satisfaction of the organization's external customers. The studies of Kohert and Levin [12] (1992) indicate the fact that the satisfaction of employees (internal customers) has a significant impact on the quality of products and as a result, it brings the satisfaction of external customers (Abdul Baqi, 2012).

In applying the concepts of internal marketing, several steps are taken in order to develop and evaluate the concept of internal marketing. In a division, these steps are categorized into three parts:

First step, employee motivation and satisfaction: In the first step of internal marketing, the most focus is on employee motivation. This internal marketing step includes the following two parts:

(1) Attention to employees as internal customers (2) Focus on employee satisfaction.

Second step, customer orientation: In this stage of internal marketing, the engagement of employees with services and their responsiveness to external customers is considered. The basic goal of internal marketing is to create positive interaction between The provision of more effective services requires effective coordination of non-seasonal employees with customers on the one hand, and employees of the next ranks on the other hand.

Third step, development and expansion of the concept of internal marketing: in this step, the use of internal marketing strategies as a means of using strategies and managing customers in order to achieve organizational goals (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2000).

Given the importance of internal marketing and The market orientation of the present research tries to examine the relationship between two variables with regard to the mediating role of commitment and organizational citizenship behavior and to answer the question that to what extent factors such as internal marketing, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior affect the success of the market orientation of Isfahan Development Cooperative Bank branches? has attracted