Embedding Work-Life Practices into Internal Marketing: Its Application in the Manufacturing Industry

Internal marketing (IM) is a holistic management process that utilises marketing techniques to understand employee-employer exchanges inside firms, achieving organisational objectives. Paralleling market orientation, internal market orientation (IMO) is an operationalisation of IM of interest to management. This paper develops a model that we call ‘Work-Life embedded Internal Market Orientation (WL-IMO)’, which addresses the management challenges related to work-life balance and reduced well-being. Embedding work-life implications into IMO, this study initially examines how WL-IMO affects employee happiness, retention, and productivity. The interplay of IM and work-life practices opens new avenues for similar research in the work-life area. Collecting data from Chinese manufacturing sectors, this paper employed mixed-method approaches and validated WL-IMO as a second-order construct composed of six subdimensions. WL-IMO enhances employees’ intention to stay, their productivity, and happiness. Results confirm the positive effect of IMO on employee behaviour, providing managerial advice to organisations with similar issues.