Developing our understanding of patronizing frontline employees

Abstract

Purpose – In an overwhelming portion of the US service economy, the multifaceted responsibilities that frontline employees play as patrons have been overlooked within the academic literature. The notion of employees as customers is a common business practice that garners sizeable benefits to both the firm and its employees; unfortunately, research on this topic is still in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of internal marketing and job satisfaction on employee patronage, and the role of patronage on employee engagement in a Cooperative Extension Service System.Design/methodology/approach – An online survey administered to Cooperative Extension employees in frontline service roles was used to test the proposed structural model. Structural equation modeling carried out using the Amos 18.0 software program was employed to analyze the proposed hypotheses.Findings – It was found that internal marketing is composed of five dimensions, as tested using a second‐order hierarchical str...