Sustainability starts from within: A critical analysis of internal marketing in supporting sustainable value co-creation in B2B organisations
通过分析17名B2B企业员工的访谈，研究内部营销如何帮助或阻碍员工参与可持续价值共创，并识别出组织内的“可持续性差距”及其解决阶段。
The role of value co-creation in embedding sustainability within B2B marketing is well-documented. However, little is known about how employees enact this value co-creation, or how they can be supported to do so by their organisations. This article addresses this theoretical gap by analysing the role of employees and Internal Marketing in B2B organisations' efforts to co-create sustainable value. We propose that, since employees are tasked with delivering their organisation's ‘promise’, they can also purposely generate value for a broader range of stakeholders. As such, Internal Marketing can be a key enabler (or inhibitor) in these efforts. Adopting a Service-Dominant Logic and Service Gap lens, the research utilises Template Analysis of 17 semi-structured interviews with employees from a range of B2B organisations, which have adopted ‘sustainability-oriented’ practices. The findings highlight the contribution of Internal Marketing in supporting sustainable value, and demonstrate that, whilst employees can play a key role in the co-creation of sustainable value, value co-destruction can occur due to a ‘Sustainability gap’ within their organisations. This study contributes significantly to extant knowledge by offering a taxonomized analysis of the ‘sustainability gap’ and identifying how B2B organisations can address these at the awareness, design, internal communication, and implementation stages.