5. Discussion and conclusions
Many scholars have argued that creating close relationships with customers will lead to organization success (Hansen et al., 2013) and those relationships need market-oriented perspective (Guo and Wang, 2015) and internal marketing process (Caldwell et al., 2015). Many studies have indentified the positive consequences of market orientation (e.g., Kajalo and Lindblom, 2015; Guo and Wang, 2015; Amin et al., 2016) and internal marketing (e.g., Hwang and Chi, 2005; Lings and Greenley, 2009; Gounaris et al., 2010). The purpose of the current research was to investigate the effect of internal marketing and market orientation on organizational performance based on the balanced scorecard. This study was conducted in the restaurant industry. The findings showed that internal marketing has a significant direct impact on market orientation (β= 0.44, CR= 7.40). Also, internal marketing (β= 0.39, CR= 6.12) and market orientation (β= 0.58, CR= 8.36) have a significant direct impact on performance. These findings are in line with the findings of Ahmed et al. (2003), Bouranta et al. (2005), Kyriazopoulos et al. (2007), and Theodoridis and Panigyrakis (2010).
The findings reveal the direct impact of internal marketing on dimensions of performance; financial (β= 0.23), customer (β= 0.15), internal process (β= 0.26), and learning and growth (β= 0.25). As numbers indicate, amongst the dimensions of performance, internal process is most impacted in the presence of appropriate internal marketing activities. In addition, market orientation also has a significant direct impact on dimensions of performance; financial (β= 0.88), customer (β= 0.94), internal process (β= 0.86), and learning and growth (β= 0.91). As numbers indicate, amongst the dimensions of performance, customer dimension is most impacted in the presence of appropriate internal marketing activities.
