Internal marketing: focus on practice

Most studies in Internal Marketing (IM) are divorced from the realities that management practitioners encounter in the flow of everyday organisational life. Although some studies have called for the incorporation of practitioner 'voice' in IM research, such calls have often been ignored. This paper therefore, is an attempt at giving 'voice' to practitioners. Based on a qualitative study of perspectives drawn from multi-sector businesses in two functional areas-Marketing and Human Resources Management, the paper presents practitioners' understanding of the IM concept vis a vis the literature. Our findings indicate that interdepartmental conflicts between marketers and HR practitioners as purported in the literature are rarely evident in practice. The paper concludes with implications for managers and the academic community.