Title: Internal marketing: focus on practice

Authors: Uchenna Paschal Anosike, Pervaiz Khalid Ahmed

Addresses: Wolverhampton Business School, University of Wolverhampton, CA105 Compton Park Campus, Compton Road West, WV3 9DX, Wolverhampton, UK. ' School of Business, Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150 Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Abstract: Most studies in Internal Marketing (IM) are divorced from the realities that management practitioners encounter in the flow of everyday organisational life. Although some studies have called for the incorporation of practitioner |voice| in IM research, such calls have often been ignored. This paper therefore, is an attempt at giving |voice| to practitioners. Based on a qualitative study of perspectives drawn from multi-sector businesses in two functional areas – Marketing and Human Resources Management, the paper presents practitioners| understanding of the IM concept vis a vis the literature. Our findings indicate that interdepartmental conflicts between marketers and HR practitioners as purported in the literature are rarely evident in practice. The paper concludes with implications for managers and the academic community.

Keywords: internal marketing; human resource management; HRM; marketing management; interdepartmental conflicts; management practice; academic research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMP.2009.026962

International Journal of Management Practice, 2009 Vol.3 No.4, pp.369 - 382

Published online: 11 Jul 2009 *

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