Impact of internal marketing on sales force performance in Turkish pharmaceutical sector

This paper presents an empirical study which focuses on the relationship between the implementation of internal marketing programs and the performance of sales representatives? working for pharmaceutical firms operating in Turkey. Moreover, the study also explores the mediating effect of employee satisfaction and the moderating effect of market orientation on the relationship between internal marketing and sales force performance.Different from other sectors, the marketing function in Turkish pharmaceutical organizations is strictly controlled by the regulations of the Government and direct-to-consumer marketing and advertising are not allowed. In a business setting where external marketing activities are very limited and marketing strategy is almost dependent upon the interactive marketing techniques applied by the sales representatives; the selection, recruitment, development and retention of customer-oriented, top-quality sales personnel are very critical. Thus, measuring the impact of internal marketing on performance in pharmaceutical sector is very meaningful and constitutes the significance of this piece of research.The study is based on data collected by qualitative and quantitative methods. Sales and marketing managers from 4 leading pharmaceutical firms are interviewed. 306 sales representatives working in the same firms have been subjected to a survey. Factor and reliability, regression, t-Tests and ANOVA analyses are used to investigate the data.The findings indicate that there is significant positive relationship between internal marketing and sales force performance. The hypothesis that employee satisfaction mediates the relationship between internal marketing and sales force performance is supported, where the positive impact of internal marketing on performance is enhanced by this mediation. However, the research results show that market orientation has no moderating effect on the same relationship.