The Influence of Internal Marketing and Values on Employee Engagement in Higher Education

Abstract

Purpose: This doctoral thesis focused on conceptualizing Internal Marketing (IM) and developing a validated instrument for its measurement. Additionally, the research aimed to reveal the influence of Internal Marketing by identifying what is important to employees to foster their engagement with the organization. Design/Methodology/Approach: A mixed methods approach, specifically the sequential exploratory research design, was employed in this study. Semi-structured interviews were purposefully selected as the method for qualitative data collection and conducted with 15 individuals holding diverse administrative roles within a University setting. These interviews provided insights that informed the development of a questionnaire for the quantitative phase. The target population for the survey included employees (both academic and administrative) from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Cyprus. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed via email to the entire population, resulting in a response rate of 22,4% (509 respondents, 415 were usable for data analysis). Reliability analysis, normality assessment, inferential statistics, and hypotheses testing were conducted, supplemented by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These analyses served to validate theoretical constructs and determined the acceptance or rejection of research hypotheses.