Employees as internal audience: how advertising affects employees’ customer focus

Abstract

Ad campaigns target consumers with information about the company, its products, and sometimes its employees. Ads also reach the organization's employees and may contain information useful to employees in meeting customer needs. Results from a study involving a high-tech firm indicate that when employees believe ads are effective and value congruent, their customer focus increases. Pride completely mediates the effects of value congruence and effectiveness on customer focus. Organizational identification of employees generally results in a more favorable reaction to ads. A second study involving a regional health facility replicates and extends these findings to include employee portrayal accuracy when employees are featured in ads. Employee portrayal accuracy affects promise accuracy, effectiveness and value-congruence. In addition, employee portrayal accuracy has a direct effect on customer focus.

Principles and Principals: Do Customer Stewardship and Agency Control Compete or Complement When Shaping Frontline Employee Behavior?

“…Definition "An understanding and practice of leadership that places the good of those led over the self-interest of the leader, emphasizing leader behaviors that focus on follower development, and de-emphasizing glorification of the leader" (Hale and Fields 2007, p. 397) "A company-wide effort seeking to install and make permanent a climate where employees will continuously improve their ability to provide on-demand products and services that customers will find of particular value" (Ciampa 1992, p. xxii) "Oneness with or belongingness to an entity, where the individual defines him or herself in terms of the entity to which he or she is a member" (Mael and Ashforth 1992, p Brand purchase value (Tsai 2005); operating income (Hendricks and Singhal 1997); sales growth (Barron and Paulson Gjerde 1996); stock price performance (Hendricks and Singhal 2001) Affective commitment (Suh et al 2011); continuous improvement (Lee 2004); CO (Wieseke et al 2007); employee performance (Wieseke et al 2009); promise accuracy (Celsi and Gilly 2010); value congruence (Celsi and Gilly 2010); voluntary learning behavior (Walumbwa, Cropanzano, and Hartnell 2009) How it differs from CSC Servant leadership describes the relationship between a leader and followers; CSC takes the employee-customer interface as a point of departure. A servant leader makes employees perform desirable behaviors because they "want to give something back in return for the leader's supportiveness" (Ehrhart 2004, p. 70).…”

The Impact of Mission Fulfillment on the Internal Audience: Psychological Job Outcomes in a Services Setting

“…Newsletters and other routine forms of intraorganizational communication can be modified to feature (a) specific firm activities that are undertaken in an effort to fulfill the mission and (b) any outcomes, such as awards or improvements in relevant ratings by customers or other stakeholders, that demonstrate successes in fulfilling the mission. Given Celsi and Gilly's (2010) findings that employees are attuned to the degree to which advertising messages are congruent with firm values, managers can also potentially enhance employee perceptions of OMF by modifying advertisements to portray the organization's mission-related efforts and achievements.…”

“…Second, if a firm's fidelity (or lack thereof) to its public statements is of consequence to service employees, we must understand how actions that relate to such statements affect not only external audiences (e.g., customers and investors), which marketing scholars often examine but also the ''internal audience'' of employees (Celsi and Gilly 2010;Gilly and Wolfinbarger 1998). That is, we argue that firm actions related to important, enduring public statements have internal marketing implications, and internal marketing is critical for the implementation of marketing strategies (Walker and Ruekert 1987).…”

Paradoxos na identificação organizacional com uma instituição de ensino superior

“…Este aspecto, em conjunto com os aspectos dos construtos de 'Identificação Organizacional' e de 'Congruência de Valores', corrobora a ideia central de Celsi and Gilly (2010) de que muitos alunos se identificam com determinada instituição de ensino em função do contato que tiveram com a comunicação da marca. Ver tabela 7.…”