The relationship between internal marketing and the organizational commitment of doctors and nurses at Mardi Waluyo Hospital, Metro Lampung Indonesia

Background: The quality of a hospital's service is strongly associated with its human resources performance. Employees' performance will improve if they have a commitment to the organization employing them. A way to enhance this organizational commitment is by internal marketing. Internal marketing is a method to motivate, develop, and retain employees in order to achieve a quality of service and fulfill customers' expectations. As the biggest private hospital in Kota Metro, Lampung, Indonesia Mardi Waluyo Hospital is facing the challenge of increasing patient numbers, and thus an increasing employees' workload, especially for the doctors and nurses. Another factor is that there are only a few doctors and Mardi Waluyo Hospital has a regulation forbidding its employees from working in other places. In this situation, an organizational commitment from the doctors and nurses is required. Human resources management, through internal marketing, can be a solution to create capable, efficient, and committed employees, so that quality services can be delivered with affection, as stated in the mission blueprint of Mardi Waluyo Hospital. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to measure the relationship between internal marketing and the organizational commitment of the doctors and nurses working at Mardi Waluyo Hospital, and to explore the internal marketing efforts applied by Mardi Waluyo Hospital. Method: This is an analytical study using a mixed method. The quantitative subjects were 105 doctors and nurses at Mardi Waluyo Hospital, while the qualitative subjects were the hospital's managers, and representatives of Yayasan Kristen untuk Kesehatan Umum (YAKKUM). The measurement instruments were questionnaires and guided interviews. To describe the relationship between the dependent and independent variables, a linear regression analysis was performed. Result: The findings reveal that vision, reward, and development, bought together as one concept of internal marketing are significant (P < 0.05) and had a positive (R = 0.471) relationship with the organizational commitment of the doctors and nurses at Mardi Waluyo Hospital. The contribution by internal marketing to explaining the variance of the organizational commitment was 22.1%. Conclusion: Internal marketing is significant and has a positive relationship with the organizational commitment of the doctors and nurses employed by Mardi Waluyo Hospital. Therefore, the application of internal marketing should be emphasized to help create a better organizational commitment and service quality.