Investigating relationships between internal marketing practices and employee organizational commitment in the foodservice industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between internal marketing practices, employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention in the foodservice industry. Design/methodology/approach – The target population was employees who were currently working at a restaurant in the USA. All respondents were recruited from different states for the generalization of the study results. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the measurement model, and subsequently, structural equation modeling tested the proposed model. Findings – Three internal marketing practices – vision, development and rewards – were good indicators for predicting employee job satisfaction, and two internal marketing practices – development and rewards – in addition to job satisfaction were significant predictors for employee organizational commitment. Finally, the findings indicated that job satisfaction and affective commitment had a significant impact on lowering employee turnover intention. Research limitations/implications – In further research, more internal marketing practices – such as employee motivation, customer orientation, sharing information, employee empowerment – can be added to the model to increase employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Practical implications – Foodservice operators should focus on internal marketing practices to have satisfied employees who, in turn, are more likely to deliver high service quality to customers. Originality/value – This study has not only extended the influential scope of the internal marketing theory to organizational commitment, but has also proposed the antecedents of organizational commitment (i.e. internal marketing practices and employee job satisfaction) and clarified the relationships among them.