Analysing relationships among frontline employee perceptions of rewards, attitudes and service quality in banking call centres: an internal marketing perspective.

摘要

The basic purpose of the research is to understand the significance of internaludmarketing in influencing frontline employees'job-related attitudes and service quality.udSince rewards are considered to be an important compqnent of internal marketing, thisudresearch investigates relationships among frontline employee perceptions of rewardsud(extrinsic and intrinsic), attitudes (three components of organisational commitmentudviz. affective, normative and continuance, and job satisfaction), and service quality, inudbanking call centres.udIn this context, a conceptual model is presented comprising rewards as theudantecedentsa, ttitudes as the mediating variables, and service quality of the frontlineudemployees as the outcome variable. The model is empirically tested through a largeudsample study that is conducted among 4 call centres of a major retail bank in the UK.udFollowing certain qualitative in-depth interviews at the exploratory stage, structuraludequation modelling (using AMOS) is carried out on 342 useable questionnairesud(response rate of more than 50%), to empirically test the proposed framework for theudstudy. The measurement and structural models, after validation and purification,udprovided satisfactory fit estimates across absolute, incremental and parsimoniousudmeasures.udThe results highlight the importance of rewards, as part of internal marketing, inudmaintaining employee attitudes, and improving service quality. Intrinsic rewards (likeudrole clarity, training and skill variety) emerged as the most significant of all, as theyudwere found to impact on service quality directly. Extrinsic social rewards (likeudsupervision and team support) were not found to be significant, while the findingudregarding extrinsic organisational rewards-service quality relationship was surprising.udAlthough assumed important for perfon-nance, some had no direct effect (pay, andudbenefits satisfaction, extrinsic exchange), while others (working conditions andudpromotional opportunities) exerted a negative direct effect on service quality, althoughudthe indirect effect of most of these rewards was found to be positive. However, theseudrewards were considered important for influencing employee attitudes, which in turnudinfluence service quality. In this context, the importance of employee attitudes likeudaffective commitment and job satisfaction is emphasisedfor service quality. Theudempirical results of the study also reveal that it is the nature of commitment thatudmatters in commitment-service quality relationship. Affective commitment emerged asudthe only attitude variable to bear a significant positive relationship with serviceudquality. Job satisfaction was not found to impact on service quality directly, althoughudthe indirect effect was found to be positive. Normative commitment impacted onudservice quality indirectly, while continuance commitment was not found to beudeffective at all.udBesides theoretical and methodological contributions, the thesis also provides strongudmanagerial implications and directions for future research in applying internaludmarketing for improving service quality of frontline employees in call centres.udKeywords: internal marketing, rewards, service quality, commitment, job satisfaction,udUK banks, call centres, frontline employees.