지역기술혁신 진흥기관의 고객지향성에 미치는 내부마케팅의 영향

Abstract

Today's marketing activities of enterprises and other business entities target not only their external customers of enterprises and other business entities. Given that the ultimate goal pursued by an enterprise is to satisfy what external customers need and want through building customer-oriented mind by satisfying its internal customers, it is a widely recognized phenomenon in the business circle that marketing approaches are also essential to suit the internal customers' tastes. Marketing carried out within an organization can specify what is needed to achieve customer satisfaction, provide appropriate information and training programs that internal customers are eager to receive, and enhance the overall quality of the product and service. The methods applied to help produce creative ideas and yield insightful knowledge on how frequently the customers' desires change, which, in the end, brings valuable feedback to the organization. Up to now, the research for internal marketing has predominantly been conducted by the profitable service industry. However, customer-orientation has become a hot button studied not only by manufacturers but by non-profit organizations and the public sector, as well, including government institutions. Unfortunately, few studies have been conducted investigating the relationship between internal marketing practice and level of customer satisfaction within institutions established to promote technological innovation at the local level, such as a "Technopark." The primary purposes of this research are as follows. First, to construct a theoretical structure of the institution for promoting regional technology innovation by referring to case studies in the past with regard to the key components of the internal marketing, empathy, immersion into the organization, customer orientation, and organizational innovation. Second, to demonstrate how the in internal marketing elements influence such behaviors as empathy among individuals within organizations and the level of their devotion to the organizations, and investigate how significantly empathy and variations of their devotion to the organization will impact customer orientation. Third, to prove whether the innovation of the organizations could assume a mediating role between independent variables and intervening variables and between intervening variables and dependent variables. F0urth, it may provide meaningful results regarding customer orientation of regional institutions for the sake of promoting technological innovation based on the results of the empirical analysis. In order to pursue these research purposes, models and hypotheses necessary to carry out the research were established, followed by empirical analysis based on prior research on how the internal marketing tactics affect empathy among individuals and customer orientation. For the empirical analysis, individuals working with the local Technopark, as a local institution for promoting technological innovation, were surveyed for the purpose of collecting relevant sources. Surveyed materials were scrutinized by employing the statistical packages, SPSS 18 and AMOS 20. The peculiar quality of each source was identified through frequency analysis, and factor and reliability analyses were each introduced to make sure that analyzing tools within research models were reasonable and trustworthy. In addition, a confirmatory factor was utilized along with a structural equation model to test proposed hypothesis and research models. In order to decipher what mediating roles group innovation takes in relationship among concepts within the research models, an effectiveness analysis was executed. Following are the test results of the proposed hypotheses. First, it is believed that education, training and rewarding schemes among internal marketing elements have a noticeable influence on the empathy factor. Second, any supportive and after-performance incentives given by the management have a positive impact on the immersion factor. Third, to study how empathy encourages individual devotion to the organization, and the devotion factor leads to a positive contribution to customer orientation. moreover, the role of moderating variables was investigated on the empirically analyzed results. Subsequently, the regulating effect of the group innovation on those internal marketing factors, empathy and customer orientation, was analyzed, and it becomes meaningful only in the relationship between managerial support and empathy. As for the relationship between the internal marketing factors and devotion to the organization, the regulating effect of the group innovation was significant. It also showed the significance for the relationship between education/training among inbound marketing factors and the customer orientation, and finally between empathy and the customer orientation. However, it does not seem to be very effective on the relationship between the devotion factor and customer orientation. Here are several suggestions to activate the customer-oriented internal marketing practices in a Technopark, a local institution to boost technological innovation, based on the empirically analyzed outcomes. First, given that among the internal marketing factors in Technopark, an agency to promote technological innovation in local community, education/training and rewarding schemes influence on the empathy among the group individuals and these variables affect the customer orientation, it is necessary to tighten the level of the training programs in a more effective and organized way and to improve the employee reward and recognition systems Second, managerial support and better rewarding systems among the inbound marketing factors are to be found to affect the level of one's devotion to the organization, which contributes to customer orientation. Therefore, the managerial support and reasonable rewarding schemes should be put in place. Third, because the empathy factor plays a significant role in the level of one's devotion to the organization and the customer orientation, and so does the level of one's devotion to the organization on customer orientation, more attention should be paid to the relationship between the empathy among the group individuals and the level of their devotion to the organization, resulting in a customer-oriented mindset. It is advisable to implement various professional training programs and to make effort to create a favorable working environment in order to see satisfying results in the area of customer orientation. Fourth, the regulation effect of group innovation proves meaningful in the relationship between the managerial support and empathy, education/training and the customer orientation, and empathy and customer orientation. Therefore, a bond among the group individuals should be established through efficient employee training programs where management emphasizes group innovation, through which the customer-oriented employees are more devoted to attaining the goals set by the organization.