Internal Demarketing: Construct, Research Propositions And Managerial Implications

To a large degree, organizations strive for marketing and selling themselves as good employers. However, by a wide range of actions, practices, mistakes, and premises they can most notably demotivate rather than motivate their workforces. On the face of it, this paper proposes a conceptual framework where (1) internal demarketing (ID) is regarded as a sort of corporate illness that is (2) closely associated with high and middle managers’ actions, decisions, and behaviors that (3) are capable of triggering negative perceptions at work settings that (4) can potentially lead to the decrease of productivity and/or poor organizational performance. Thus, some constructs are posited as determinants of ID manifestation such as psychological contract violation, people devaluing, quality of work life unconcern, poor leadership, blurred vision, the spread of distrust, and lack of corporate communication. Also, the potential consequences of ID are addressed, namely the lack of commitment, employee dissatisfaction, and employee silence.