The impact of internal marketing on commercial banks' market orientation

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of internal marketing, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors on commercial banks' market orientation.

A quantitative survey methodology was adopted to collect data from commercial (non‐state owned) banks' employees in Jordan. A sample of 365 employees within seven of 13 Jordanian commercial banks was used. Data were analyzed using AMOS 16.0 to determine the interactions between the various factors.

Empirical findings confirmed that internal marketing, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors had a positive direct effect on banks' market orientation. In addition, organizational commitment had a positive direct effect on organizational citizenship behaviors.

Jordanian commercial banks should convert internal marketing as a strategy into their core operations and systems to meet employees' demands and the bank goals. This conversion shall make employees show their sincere organizational commitment so that they can express the attitude of organizational citizenship behaviors that are beneficial for the banks' operations and survival.

The paper introduces a new perspective of the associations and interactions that take place between marketing and organizational behavior concepts which affect organizations' market orientation endeavors. While such perspective is considerably new and relevant to general marketing literature, the fact that this paper is one of few papers that focus on internal marketing in Jordan adds to its originality.