Determining employee brand commitment in NCAA Division I college athletics : a path analysis of internal marketing practices and their influence on organizational commitment /

Abstract

Building on King & Grace's (2008) Employee Brand Commitment Model, the purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of internal marketing practices in college athletics and to examine if internal marketing practices have an effect on the level of organizational commitment among departmental employees.

The current study employed a cross-sectional, non-experimental design based on survey research and appropriate statistical analyses to predict the effect of internal marketing and selected independent measures on the constructs of organizational commitment. The selected population of included full-time personnel in the management, customer-contact, and support levels of intercollegiate athletic departments across NCAA Division I schools. Respondents (N = 248) completed a web-based questionnaire incorporating adapted versions of Money and Foreman's Internal Marketing Scale and Meyer and Allen's Organizational Commitment Scales. Following the tests of validity and reliability, it was determined that three of the four scales (internal marketing, affective commitment, and normative commitment) provided suitable evidence to include the data in the current study.

Regression analyses of the full affective commitment model and the normative commitment models consisted of a two-layered approach, with the first regression model evaluating the influence of job function and organizational tenure on internal marketing. The second regression model analyzed the influences of all three independent variables (job function, organizational tenure, and internal marketing) on affective and normative commitment levels.

Path analysis suggests that internal marketing did indeed have a significant influence on affective commitment levels, but internal marketing had no significant influence on normative commitment levels. Results indicate that neither job function nor organizational tenure significantly influence affective commitment levels, but only organizational tenure has a significant influence on normative commitment levels.

The study illustrates that internal marketing practices have some influence on the facets of organizational commitment, which further emphasizes the benefits that implementing an internal marketing process can have positive outcomes for a sport organization. Additionally, the study provides evidence which will allow sport managers to be more aware of how to directly influence the respective employee's commitment to the organization and the athletic brand.