Internal market orientation, internal marketing practices, public service motivation, persistence and employee performance: empirical evidence from Australian universities

Much is known about marketing strategy effectiveness and its impact on financial returns. Minimal research, though, has been conducted on how to encourage employees to help successfully implement a strategy. This thesis seeks to answer this question by examining the implementation of marketing strategies for research and teaching in the university sector.

Specific attention was given to the impacts of following a strategy (internal market orientation and internal marketing practices), and individual drivers (public service motivation and persistence) as predictors of performance. The interrelationships between these variables were also examined, as well as their impact on measures of employee performance; in this case, teaching ratings, research quality and quantity, and hours spent on service.

A mixed-methods approach was taken, with initial qualitative interviews of 20 academics providing the conceptual model which was then validated by a survey of 492 academics across Australia and New Zealand. The findings conclude that individual factors, especially persistence and in some cases public service motivation, are linked to performance more strongly than following a strategy. This, along with the role of experience and academic level, suggests that a resource-based view of strategy may be more appropriate for managing human assets and building capabilities, rather than an implementation of a grand plan. Furthermore, we find evidence that several strategies may be more effective than one approach in complex service organizations like universities. This thesis thus confirms the importance of people and how strategy is implemented.