How internal marketing leads to citizenship behavior in services? The role of internal satisfaction and work engagement

This research aims to determine the effect of internal marketing activities on citizenship behavior in services. In addition, it is also aimed to find the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between internal marketing and citizenship behavior. Finally, the mediated effects of internal satisfaction are examined in the relationships between internal marketing and work engagement as well as work engagement and citizenship behavior. This research investigated the concepts of internal marketing, work engagement, internal customer satisfaction, and citizenship behavior which are critical concepts for employees and organizations in the marketing and management fields. Online survey techniques as one of the quantitative research methods were utilized to collect primary data. This study's target population consists of Azerbaijani public bank employees. Due to the larger size of employees working in public banks in the country, it seems it would be more convenient to access the employees of public banks for gathering data. Therefore, we used a simple convenience sampling technique to collect data from 300 employees of public banks in Azerbaijan. Findings showed that two dimensions of internal marketing activities (i.e., reward and vision) positively affect work engagement whereas another dimension did not affect work engagement. Furthermore, findings highlighted the significant effect of work engagement on citizenship behaviors. For the first time, our results indicated that work engagement plays a mediated role in the relationship between internal marketing and citizenship behaviors. Finally, the results of Hayes' Process (Model 58) demonstrated that internal satisfaction moderates the relationship between internal marketing and work engagement as well as the link between work engagement and citizenship behavior. Key Words: Internal Customer Satisfaction, Internal Marketing, Work Engagement, Citizenship Behavior.