Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:17:49.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Optimising the internal value chain: Principles and practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Mark T Spence  and
Sudhir H Kale
Mark T Spence
Affiliation:
Bond University, Gold Coast QLD, Australia
Sudhir H Kale
Affiliation:
Globalization and Development Centre, Bond University, Gold Coast QLD, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The employee–customer interface in hedonic services requires high quality interactions at key touch points to ensure experiences are positively remembered. We propose an approach that combines service blueprinting with internal marketing to achieve these experiences. While internal marketing suggests using marketing techniques for hiring, retaining and motivating employees, the literature in this field has been largely independent of each employee's contribution to the internal value chain. Service blueprinting is a useful approach which makes explicit the value creation processes used in service production. No study has thus far connected the blueprint (which identifies functions to be performed) to internal marketing (which specifies the mechanisms for hiring, retaining and motivating the people performing the functions). This paper proposes a service value chain optimisation framework to enhance employee–customer interactions in hedonic services using these two research streams.

Keywords

internal value chainmoments of truthinternal marketingservice blueprinting
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 193 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baum, SH (1990) Making your service blueprint pay off! The Journal of Services Marketing 4: 45–52.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, H, Sujan, M and Padgett, D (1997) Patterns of affective reactions to advertisements: The integration of moment-to-moment responses to overall judgments, Journal of Marketing Research 34: 219–232.Google Scholar
Bansal, HS, Mendelson, MB and Sharma, B (2001) The impact of internal marketing activities on external marketing outcomes, Journal of Quality Management 6: 61–76.Google Scholar
Berry, LL and Parasuraman, A (1992) Services marketing starts from within, Marketing Management Winter: 25–34.Google Scholar
Berthon, P, Ewing, M and Hah, LL (2005) Captivating company: Dimensions of attractiveness in employer branding, International Journal of Advertising 24: 151–172.Google Scholar
Bitner, MJ (1990) Evaluating service encounters: The effects of physical surroundings and employee responses, Journal of Marketing 54: 69–82.Google Scholar
Bitner, MJ (1992) Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees, Journal of Marketing 56: 57–71.Google Scholar
Booms, , Bernard, H and Bitner, MJ (1982) Marketing services by managing the environment, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administrative Quarterly 23: 35–39.Google Scholar
Coase, RH (1937) The nature of the firm, Econometrica 6: 386–405.Google Scholar
Cowhead, DM and Levine, DI (1992) Product quality and pay equity between lower-level employees and top management: an investigation of distributive justice theory, Administrative Science Quarterly 37: 302–320.Google Scholar
Drake, SM (2005) Light Their Fire: Using internal marketing to ignite employee performance and wow your customers, Kaplan Professional Group, Chicago, Il.Google Scholar
Fredrickson, BL and Kahneman, D (1993), Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65: 45–55.Google Scholar
Freiberg, K and Freiberg, J (1997) Nuts! Southwest Airlines' crazy recipe for business and personal success, Broadway Books, NY.Google Scholar
George, W and Gibson, B (1991) Blueprinting: A tool for managing quality in service, in Brown, S, Gummesson, E and Edvardsson, B (Eds) Service Quality: Multinational and multi-disciplinary perspectives, pp. 73–91, Lexington Books, Lexington, USA.Google Scholar
Grapentine, T (1998) The history and future of service quality assessment, Marketing Research 10: 5–20.Google Scholar
Hales, C and Mecrate-Butcher, J (1994) Internal marketing and human resource management in hotel consortia, International Journal of Hospitality Management 13: 313–326.Google Scholar
Henry, R (2003) Retention One Key to Great ROE, accessed at http://www.vcgsoftware.com/pdf/wp_ROE_retention.pdf on 7 July 2006.Google Scholar
Heskett, JL, Jones, TO, Loveman, GW, Sasser, WE Jr and Schlesinger, LA (1994) Putting the service-profit chain to work, Harvard Business Review 72: 164–175.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D, Fredrickson, BL, Schreiber, CA and Redelmeier, DA (1993) When more pain is preferred to less: adding a better end, Psychological Science 4: 401–405.Google Scholar
Kale, SH (2003) CRM in gaming: It's no crap shoot! UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal 7: 43–54.Google Scholar
Kale, SH (2007) Internal marketing: an antidote for Macau's labour shortage, UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal 11: 1–11.Google Scholar
Keiningham, TL and Goddard, MKM (1999) Customer delight and the bottom line, Marketing Management 8: 57–63.Google Scholar
Joseph, WB (1996) Internal marketing builds service quality, Journal of Health Care Marketing 16: 54–64.Google Scholar
Kotler, P and Keller, KL (2006) Marketing Management, 12th edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.Google Scholar
Lings, IN (1999) Managing service quality with internal marketing schematics, Long Range Planning 32: 452–463.Google Scholar
Lings, IN (2000) Internal marketing and supply chain management, Journal of Services Marketing 14: 27–43.Google Scholar
Lucas, AF (2003) The determinants and effects of slot servicescape satisfaction in a Las Vegas hotel casino, UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal 7: 1–11.Google Scholar
Mayer, KJ, Johnson, L, Hu, C and Chen, S (1998) Gaming customer satisfaction: an exploratory study, Journal of Travel Research 37: 178–183.Google Scholar
O'Connell, M and Kung, MC (2007) The cost of employee turnover, Industrial Management 49: 14–19.Google Scholar
Page, R Jr and Spence, MT (2003) Is there a relationship between product failure and customer loyalty?Marketing Update, Australian Marketing Institute, 05.Google Scholar
Parasuraman, A, Zeithaml, V and Berry, LL (1985) A conceptual model of service quality and the implications on for future research, Journal of Marketing 49: 41–51.Google Scholar
Parasuraman, A, Zeithaml, V and Berry, LL (1988) SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring customer perceptions of service quality, Journal of Retailing Spring: 12–40.Google Scholar
Ross, WT and Simonson, I (1991) Evaluations of pairs of experiences: A preference for happy endings, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 4:273–282.Google Scholar
Schwartz, N (2000) Emotion, cognition and decision making, Cognition and Emotion 14: 433–440.Google Scholar
Shostack, GL (1984) Designing services that deliver, Harvard Business Review 01-February: 133–139.Google Scholar
Shostack, GL (1987) Service positioning through structural change, Journal of Marketing 51: 34–43.Google Scholar
Shostack, GL and Kingman Brundage, J (1991) How to design service, in Congram, C and Friedman, M (Eds), The AMA Handbook for the Services Industries, pp. 221–229, American Marketing Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Singh, J (2000) Performance productivity and quality of front-line employees in service organisations, Journal of Marketing 64: 15–34.Google Scholar
Sisodia, RS, Wolfe, DB and Sheth, JN (2007) Firms of Endearment: How world-class companies profit from passion and purpose, Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River NJ.Google Scholar
Teas, RK (1983) Supervisory behaviour, role stress, and job satisfaction of industrial salespeople, Journal of Marketing Research 20: 84–91.Google Scholar
Varey, C and Kahneman, D (1992) Experiences extended across time: evaluation of moments and episodes, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 5: 169–185.Google Scholar
Williamson, O (1975) Markets and Hierarchy, The Free Press, NY.Google Scholar
Zeithaml, VA, Bitner, MJ and Gremler, DD (2006) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm (4th edn) McGraw-Hill Irwin, NY.Google Scholar