Internal market orientation and the organizational performance

With the increasing production cost in the manufacturing industry, more and more

manufacturers move out from coastal cities as there is a serious labor shortage. Unlike their

forefather, the millennials who were born after the 1980s expect more for freedom, privacy

protection, well-being and equal payment from their jobs. However, in practice, the

manufacturers do not achieve the millennials’ expectation. Weak communication, poor working

conditions, unequal payment, poor employer-employee relationship and longer working hours

are still the problems need to tackle. This study applies internal market orientation as a tool to

solve these problems. By developing an extended internal market orientation construct based

on previous internal marketing literature, this paper contributes to the existing theory by

establishing an integrated conceptual framework indicating the significance of the relationships

between IMO and employee engagement, staff morale, and employee trust, which ultimately

leads to better organizational performance. Furthermore, to investigate whether IMO’s

influence on and employee engagement, staff morale, and employee trust will differ from the

employment relationship, leadership and employee demographics. Using the manufacturing

industry in China can also shed lights on internal marketing management in other emerging

economies.