Adoption of internal marketing strategies for improving internal customer psychological well-being, commitment and performance: The bibliographic review

Abstract

This bibliographic review examines the impact of internal marketing strategies on internal customer outcomes, organisational commitment, psychological well-being, and employee performance across various industries, including banking, aviation, healthcare, and sports services. A comprehensive search was conducted across the Semantic Scholar database using the research question, “Adoption of Internal Marketing Strategies for Improving Internal Customer Psychological Well-being, Commitment, and Performance”. From an initial pool of 50 studies, 10 were selected based on specific inclusion criteria: targeting employees as internal customers, focusing on internal marketing strategies, and measuring outcomes such as organisational commitment, job performance, and psychological well-being. The analysis found that internal marketing strategies, including rewards/incentives, communication, training, and internal branding, were consistently linked with enhanced organisational commitment, particularly affective commitment, with effect sizes ranging from moderate (R²=0.249) to very strong (R²=0.764). Several studies highlighted that organisational commitment mediates the relationship between internal marketing and employee performance, especially in sectors like healthcare and aviation. One study directly measured multiple dimensions of well-being, showing internal branding’s contribution to well-being outcomes. However, critical gaps were identified in the literature. These include the need for further exploration of internal marketing’s impact on different subtypes of organisational commitment, direct measurement of well-being, and a deeper investigation into the mediating role of motivation and empowerment. Additionally, the consistency of findings across industries and cultures remains unclear. The study also encountered challenges such as the predominance of cross-sectional designs and a lack of detailed reporting in some studies, which hindered the clarity of effect sizes and statistical significance. Future research should address these limitations and explore the contextual nuances of internal marketing strategies across diverse industries.