The prioritization of the effects of internal marketing activities on emotional commitment with analytic hierarchy process

One of the most important ways in which businesses can survive in the current environments is to realize that their most valuable source is their co-workers and that they have to direct their management strategies to this issue. Especially in the service sector where production and consumption is realized simultaneously, it is crucial that the employers recognize and covers the needs of their invaluable employees in order to ensure the final customers satisfaction. One way to meet this need is through the efficient use of internal marketing activities. The purpose of this study is to determine the importance of internal marketing activities according to their effect on affective commitment, which is a type of voluntary commitment. This serves the purpose to reveal which internal marketing activities can be used my management that have the most effect on their employees. The focus group is selected to be the sales department as the unit of analysis since these employees have big influence on commerce. In accordance with the purpose of this study, data was collected through a questionnaire filled with face-to-face interviews from 20 sales representatives who work in close contact with the customers in the companies operating in the province of Istanbul. The analysis was done by MS EXCEL using the AHP method. The results from this study show that the first rank is held by the price factor, which appears to be the main and financial element, but when the sub-factors are investigated, it is seen that the importance of the intangible elements in this concept is substantial. The from the analysis created sub-factor ranking list indicates that trust and justice based activities have decisively more influence on affective commitment and are of higher in importance. It is thought that the findings of the study will be that practical contributions of managers to the correct implementation of internal marketing activities.