| Abstract: |
Successful companies attach great importance to human resource management and
internal communications, because they are aware of the value of those
activities and of strategic advantage they can bring to the organization. They
should also realize that it is necessary to live internal marketing
philosophy, if they stream to offer quality products and services to both
markets: internal and external. The idea of satisfied employees for the
benefit of satisfied customers is accepted and developed by both academicians
and practitioners, through the concepts of internal marketing, internal
communications and human resource management. Consequently, the paper had two
objectives: (1) to analyze concepts of internal marketing (IM), internal
communications (IC) and human resource management (HRM) parallelly, and define
their scopes, overlaps and differences; and (2) to propose a new internal
marketing philosophy that combines three before mentioned concepts. The
conclusion that emerged after reaching both objectives was that the new
internal marketing philosophy should be grounded in a relationship marketing
theory. It should not be limited to neither of three functional areas that are
commonly connected to it ÃÂâÃÂÃÂÃÂàinternal communications,
human resource management or marketing. It is for sure that managing internal
relationships should not be restricted to any function, and should not apply
traditional marketing concepts and tools. That would ruin the nature of
internal relationship marketing, and would not encompass all tasks it should
fulfill. |