Internal marketing scale validity and reliability study in sports organizations

The aim of this research is to develop a valid and reliable internal marketing scale in sports in order to measure the perceptions and behaviors of sports service business employees towards internal marketing practices. In addition, it is aimed to evaluate the internal marketing perception in sports with selected demographic characteristics. Since this research is a scale development study aimed at revealing the internal marketing perception of the employees of the sports service business, the study is a basic research. In the study, the quantitative research general survey model was applied. The universe of the research consists of volunteer individuals employed in sports service enterprises in Istanbul, and the sample (n=296) and (197) volunteer employees. Data was collected online on a voluntary basis by applying the survey technique as the data collection method. The data obtained were transferred to the SPSS 25 package program, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied through Lisrel version 8.80. The scale, the validity and reliability of which was tested, was reapplied to the employees of the sports service business, and independent sample T-test and Oneway ANOVA analysis were applied through the IBM SPSS 25 statistical program. As a result, it has been determined that the internal marketing scale in sports organizations, which was developed to determine the perceptions of sports service employees about internal marketing practices, is a valid and reliable measurement tool, consisting of 17 items and 2 sub-dimensions. It has been concluded that the scale is a valid and reliable scale that can be used to determine the internal marketing perceptions of sports service business employees. In the second stage of the study, in the evaluation of the demographic characteristics and internal marketing levels of the participants, it was found that there was no significant difference in the sub-dimensions of perception and productivity towards the business according to the gender and task variable. It has been determined that there is a significant difference in the productivity sub-dimension according to the age variable, and that the participants in the 18-26 age range have a more positive productivity level than the participants in the 45 and over age range. It has been determined that there is a significant difference in the dimension of perception towards the business according to the professional experience variable, and individuals with 3-6 years of professional experience have more positive perceptions of the business than those with 11 years or more of professional experience. It was determined that there was no significant difference in the productivity sub-dimension according to the professional experience variable.