The influence of internal marketing by airlines on customer-oriented behavior: A test of the mediating effect of emotional labor

Yan-Kai Fu

Journal of Air Transport Management, 2013, vol. 32, issue C, 49-57

Abstract: Most studies on internal marketing and customer-oriented behavior have not examined the correlation of these factors with emotional labor, and there are even fewer papers focusing on this subject with respect to airlines in particular. Thus, this study is to include flight attendants' emotional labor in the model and test its mediating effect between internal marketing and customer-oriented behavior. This study treats two measures of internal marketing as antecedent variables and treats surface acting and deep acting in emotional labor as mediators to construct a model of customer-oriented behavior. A survey of flight attendants from six airlines was conducted, and the research validated the model by SEM, demonstrating that internal marketing significantly and positively influences customer-oriented behavior. In the analysis of the mediating effects of emotional labor, surface acting and deep acting show a partially significant mediating effect on the “relationship between value of needs and customer-oriented behavior†. However, surface acting and deep acting show a more significant mediating effect on the “relationship between authorized autonomy and customer-oriented behavior†. Finally, this study proposes managerial implications and suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Internal marketing; Customer-oriented behavior; Emotional labor; Surface acting; Deep acting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699713000756
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:32:y:2013:i:c:p:49-57

DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2013.06.014

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Air Transport Management is currently edited by Anne Graham

More articles in Journal of Air Transport Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().