THE MEDIATING ROLE OF INTERNAL MARKET ORIENTATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY AND JOB SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF TURKISH HOTEL COMPANIES

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether service quality perceptions of hotel employees affect their work job satisfaction and to reveal whether internal market orientation has an intermediary role in this interaction. The population of the research is “All employees working in hotels with tourism establishment certificates which were operating in Turkey throughout the month of June 2019”. Data obtained from AKTOB – Association of Mediterranean Tourism, were used to determine the population size of the research. Within the scope of the data obtained, the size of the population was set as 315.513 people. Since it was not possible for the population, random sampling was used. In sampling, out of random sampling methods, the “field sampling method” was adopted. For this study, a test model has been developed and a survey has been conducted on 303 employees. In this study, internal market orientation was researched by using the structural equation model by associating the perceived service quality and job satisfaction. The most striking result of the study is the high causality impact of internal market orientation on job satisfaction. Employees, who feel that they are being cared about more in terms of internal market orientation, will have higher job satisfaction and high corporate loyalty. As a result of the Sobel Test, which was carried out to support the result regarding the mediation effect, also shows that the mediation effect is significant.

Keywords

• internal market orientation
• perceived service quality
• job satisfaction
• hotel industry
• turkey