APPLICATION OF THE INTERNAL MARKETING CONCEPT IN THE CROATIAN FINANCIAL SECTOR

Although the internal marketing concept emerged in the 1970s from service marketing, it has not been widely accepted in the business environment. One of the reasons lies in the fact that the concept and the components had not been precisely defined. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent of the acceptance of the internal marketing philosophy in the Croatian financial sector and to identify the components of internal marketing. The conducted research highlights that the acceptance of the concept in the Croatian financial sector is mediocre. This confirms the insufficient application of the concept in practice. The study findings also suggest that internal marketing is perceived through three dimensions, e.g. development and communication to employees, rewarding and training and organization’s vision. These findings underline the issue that managers have to take into consideration when designing internal marketing programs, in order to achieve IM objectives. Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature by determining the components of the internal marketing that are somewhat different of the components indicated by previous research.