The influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment in travel agencies: The case of Serbia

The aim of the research is to observe the influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment of employees in t ravel agencies. A sample of 150 respondents employed in travel agencies in Serbia was surveyed in April 2020, using the questionnaire technique and validated instruments: a modified SERVQAL model, Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) and Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). The influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment in travel agencies was tested using multiple regression. Research findings have indicated that the increase in internal service quality and employee satisfaction is accompanied by an increase in organizational commitment of employees in travel agencies. Finally, the results, implications and limitations are presented, and future research recommendations are specified.


Introduction
Tourism is one of the few economic activities that largely depend on human resources (Miliševiš & Petroviš, 2018). The specifics of human resources in hospitality and tourism are reflected in the fact that their role is crucial in every business segment, bearing in mind that almost no relationship in the value chain can be fully automated and function without human resources (Hady & Chible, 2018; Marinkoviš Matoviš & Vemiš Đurkoviš, 2020). Bearing in mind that employees in tourism and hospitality have direct contact with final consumers, their treatment of consumers directly affects the perception of the quality of services provided (Malhotra & Mukherjee, 2004). Travel agencies generally always use personal services and contacts when selling travel arrangements, create arrangements tailored to the needs and desires of consumers, and use their contacts with hotels, airlines and other complementary activities to create and deliver travel arrangements. Consequently, employees in travel agencies are considered the most crucial critical factors in the business of travel agencies. (Hady & Chible, 2018;Hefny, 2020;Pavloviš & Simic, 2019). They are the most valuable resource, and the bearers of providing quality services, creating innovation and added value, and increasing business (Periš et al., 2018). Therefore, they represent a very important factor in creating a competitive advantage of a travel agency (Sandybayev & Houjeir, 2018;Vuţetiš, 2012). The success of a travel agency is not measured exclusively by the realized profit, but also by satisfying the interests of owners and employees, as well as customers (Gajiš et al., 2014). In this sense, employees in travel agencies have a dual role, on one hand as service providers for end customers, and on the other hand as service providers for internal customers who receive services from other organizational units or employees (Maharani et al., 2020). Satisfying internal customers or employees is a prerequisite for the successful condition of quality services to end customers (Chen et al., 2012;Chiang & Wu, 2014). Highly satisfied and enthusiastic employees in travel agencies offer high level of service quality to final customers (Hefny, 2020). More precisely, understanding the correlation between internal service quality, employee satisfaction and organizational commitment is especially important in hospitality and tourism, which depends on employees, human resources and direct contact with customers (Bai et al., 2006;Dramišanin, 2019;Yeshanew & Kaur, 2018).
Providing internal services emphasizes the achievement of efficient internal exchange between the organization and its employees, which ultimately contributes to the positive results of the organization (Sharma et al., 2016). Therefore, the internal quality of services plays an important role in employee satisfaction, productivity and loyalty of final consumers (Akroush et al., 2013;Prakash & Srivastava, 2019), because the internal quality of services is related to the services provided within the organization and aims to provide quality services to final consumers (Brandon-Jones & Silvestro, 2010). Internal service quality, regardless of its growing importance, has been insufficiently researched in tourism. Empirical confirmation of the perception of employees about the internal service quality is limited. Namely, only few studies have investigated the link among employee satisfaction, internal service quality and organizational commitment (Al-Ababneh et al., 2018; Bai et al., 2006). There are studies in tourism that have studied the link between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment (Blešiš et al., 2017;Ozturk et al., 2014;Vujiţiš et al., 2015), but an insufficient number of them have studied the fundamental relationship, especially in travel agencies (Hefny, 2020). Specifically, the fact that one variable correlates with another does not mean that the first causes the other. In accordance with the above, the aim of the research is to observe the influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment of employees in travel agencies.

Internal service quality
The concept of internal marketing began to develop in the early 70s of the last century, primarily as a way to achieve quality service (Joung et al., 2015). However, despite the growing popularity in science, the concept of internal marketing is not sufficiently applied in practice (Alhakimi & Alhariryb, 2014;Rokniš & First Komen, 2015). Internal marketing is defined as -the application of marketing theory and practice in serving external consumers in a way that includes hiring and retaining the best staff and their willingness to do job in the best way‖ (Berry et al., 1976 as cited in Zdjelariš et al., 2017, p. 116). Attracting the right people, as well as maintaining good long-term relationships with them, is a cornerstone of the construction of internal marketing. Internal marketing is a constituent part of organization and is a most important trigger of internal service quality and external customer satisfaction (Akroush et al., 2013). Managers in the hospitality and tourism sector have an issue to offer internal service quality. Internal service quality is one of the basic preconditions for the understanding of organizational goals in the global hospitality and tourism market (Redţiš, 2018).
Researchers Sasser and Arbeit (1976) use the term -internal service quality‖ to focus on employees they treated as internal consumers. Employees provide internal services to other employees working in th same organization (Stauss, 1995). The proposal of internal services arose from an internal marketing perspective, which views staff as internal consumers and suggests to the organization that get-together their needs will help realize organizational goals (Sharma et al., 2016). Thus, internal service quality is decided as the professed service quality provided by particular organizational departments or employees working in them, other organizational departments, and employees in the organization (Back et al., 2011;Stauss, 1995). Duţeviš et al. (2014) point out that those employees in service organizations are internal customers in the service quality sequence and represent a very important connection. On the other hand, meeting the internal customers ' needs in a service sector, such as tourism, is a prerequisite for providing quality service to final consumers (Chen et al., 2012;Chiang & Wu, 2014). To be precise, the establishment of a philosophy that emphasizes the internal consumers or employees' well-being can serve as a means of lure and retention of final consumers (

Employee satisfaction
Researchers have different approaches to defining the concept of employee satisfaction. There is no general agreement and, therefore, there is a large number of definitions of employee satisfaction in the literature (Gautam et al., 2006). -Employee satisfaction is a combination of psychological or environmental factors that influence employees to be satisfied with their job‖ (Hoppock, 1935 as cited in Mirkoviš & Ţekrlija, 2015, p. 214). Also, Locke (1976) defines -employee satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences‖ (p. 1304), while according to Spector (1997) -employee satisfaction can be considered as a global feeling about the job or as a related constellation of attitudes about various aspects or facets of the job‖ (p. 2). The same author identifies nine aspects or facets of job important to employee satisfaction as follows: -pay and remuneration, promotion opportunities, supervision, monetary and nonmonetary benefits, contingent rewards, organization policies and procedures, co -workers, nature of work itself, and communication‖ (Spector, 1997, p. 8). An organization must understand the importance of both the satisfaction with certain facets of the job that engaged in the individual, but also their expectations from that job (Janišijeviš, 2008).
Employee satisfaction is mainly imperative in hospitality and tourism, primarily because customer retention and service quality depend on direct contact with employees (Vujiţiš et al., 2015). Employees have expectations about how to meet their needs and desires (Jevtiš et al., 2020). An organization with a built organizational culture and identity affects employee satisfaction and the intention of employees to remain in the organization (Ognjanoviš, 2017) Consequently, employee satisfaction is the most important issue facing hospitality and tourism (Matzler & Renzl, 2007). This opinion is definite by some of the earlier studies that indicated that service organizations should pay special attention to employee satisfaction (Boshoff & Tait, 1996;Heskett et al., 1994;Rust et al., 1996). Numerous studies have found that employee satisfaction is connected with a diversity of positive outcomes, starting with organizational commitment and employee retention (

Organizational commitment
In management and organizational behavior, -organizational commitment is an influential variable in an organization and is conceived as a pattern of behavior, a set of behavioral intentions, a motivating force, or an attitude‖ (Chiu et al., 2020, p. 108). The particularly important form of attitudes in the organization is an organizational commitment; it determines the connection of employees with their organization, which can significantly affect their work performance (Abdullah et al., 2020; Atmojo, 2012; Sharma et al., 2016). Porter et al. (1974) describe organizational commitment as -a strong belief and acceptance of the goals of an organization, a willingness to make a significant effort for the benefit of the organization, and a definite desire to retain membership in the organization‖ (p. 604). Similarly, Bateman and Strasser (1984) view commitment as -multidimensional in nature that includes employee loyalty to the organization, willingness to make an effort, the degree to which goals and values match the organization, and the desire to remain in the organization‖ (p. 95). Therefore, organizational commitment includes three main characteristics: employee's identification with the purpose and standards of the organization, a powerful tendency to participate in the activities of the organization, and high aspiration to belong to the organization.  Boshoff and Mels (1995) 2011) in their study of employees in Korean casinos examined the relationship among internal service quality, employee satisfaction, self-efficacy, organizational commitment, and self-esteem. The analysis was performed on 328 respondents, and the research findings have indicated that the internal quality of services has a positive effect on employee satisfaction and self-efficacy, while through employee satisfaction it affects organizational commitment and self-respect.

3.2.Relationship between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment
The link between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment has been generally conducted a survey in 17 high-end hotels in Turkey and found that employee satisfaction positively affects affective commitment. In her study on travel agency employees, Hefny (2020) explored the link between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment on a sample of 174 respondents, and the results showed that employee satisfaction has a positive influence on organizational commitment, i.e., that an advanced level of employee satisfaction raises organizational commitment.
The conceptual framework of the research is based on the above theoretical and empirical concepts of research and is illustrated in the following figure. In the line with conceptual framework of the research, the following research hypotheses will be tested: Internal service quality (H 1 ) and employee satisfaction (H 2 ) has a positive influence on organizational commitment.

Data collection and sampling
The study was done in April 2020 and the questionnaire technique was used. It was administered online and distributed via the social network Facebook and the appropriate sample method was used. Owners and employees of travel agencies in Serbia use closed groups on Facebook to exchange information. The sample consisted of 150 respondents, among whom there was no missing data. The following table shows the sample basic characteristics. The largest number of respondents in the sample are women 85 (56.67%), and more than half respondents are between 26 and 35 years of age (54.67%). Regarding the educational structure, most of the respondents have completed higher education (professional and academic studies), while more than half of the respondents have currently been working in a travel agency for 2 to 10 years .

Measurement
Measurement of the perception of internal quality of services was p erformed using the SERVQUAL model (Parasuraman et al., 1985), modified to determine the internal service quality, and based on the research of Kang et al. (2002), who confirmed that the adapted SERVQUAL model could assess the internal service quality (see Appendix 1). Respondents used the instruments to review the questions using Likert scale (five-point). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient measured reliability of the instruments and the findings ( Table  2) indicate that all three instruments have a reliability over 0.7, which is above the recommended values (DeVellis, 2016).

Research results
The following table shows the results. SD=0.56). The results also show that employees are moderately fulfilled with their wo rk (M=3.34; SD=0.30), the results are on the border between ambivalence and satisfaction. Pearson's correlation was applied in order to examine the relations among organizational commitment, internal service quality and employee satisfaction in travel agen cies. Table 4 presents the results. The results show a significant, moderate and positive correlation between organizational commitment and internal service quality (r=0.423; p=0.00), as well as between organizational commitment and employee satisfaction (r=0.397; p=0.00). The presence of multicollinearity is not observed.
Multiple regression was used for the observation of the influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment. In addition to multicollinearity, preliminary analysis examined the assumptions of normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and the presence of multivariate extreme values. No violation of the assumptions for the use of multiple regression was observed. The following table shows the results of multiple regressions to conclude the predictive effect of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment. The model is statistically significant (R 2 =0.305, F(2.147=32.32; p=0.00), which shows that the employee satisfaction and internal service quality explain 30.5% of the variance of organizational commitment. The increase in the internal service quality (β=0.39; p=0.00) and employee satisfaction (β=0.36; p=0.00) is accompanied by an increase in organizational commitment. The overall statistical results indicate that the internal service quality and employee satisfaction have a positive influence on organizational commitment.

Discussion and conclus ions
The study has examined the internal service quality, employee satisfaction, and commitment of employees in travel agencies in Serbia. The results of descriptive statistics demonstrate a very positive perception of employees about the internal service quality, while employee satisfaction is on the border between ambivalence and satisfaction, and organizational commitment is moderate. These findings are The quality issue is the main challenge for service organizations, especially in the hospitality and tourism sector. The research findings indicate that internal quality is an important predictor of employee commitment, which is in accordance with the results obtained by researchers examining the relationship between these two variables (Abdullah et al., 2020;Bai et al., 2006;Sharma et al., 2016). The first hypothesis (H1) has been proven i.e. the internal service quality has a positive influence on organizational commitment; the increase in internal service quality is accompanied by an increase in employee commitment to travel agencies.
Furthermore, in addition to previous research whose findings propose that organizational commitment leads to employee satisfaction (Vandenberg & Lance, 1992;Bateman & Strasser, 1984), this research clearly ensures evidence that employee satisfaction is a predictor of organizational commitment, as evidenced by numerous studies conducted in hospitality and tourism sector (Bai et  Although internal service quality is an essential component in realizing a high level of employee commitment (Bai et al., 2006), the results of internal service quality and employee satisfaction reflect moderate employee commitment in travel agencies. As already mentioned, the findings of multiple regression have co nfirmed the influence of internal service quality and employee satisfaction on organizational commitment.

Managerial implications
An important concept in hospitality and tourism organizations is internal service quality, bearing in mind that it affects the commitment of employees, as well as providing high quality services to internal customers. Employees have a critical role in interaction with final customers, which is a prerequisite for quality service and is the ultimate goal of organizational success. Therefore, managers and owners of travel agencies have to recognize the significance of internal service quality and to establish appropriate mechanisms for its measurement, where monitoring is emphasized. In addition, management needs to find a way to advance internal service quality, at the individual and organizational unit level, bearing in mind that internal service quality is a critical issue in achieving a competitive advantage in the hospitality and tourism sector.
The imperative of organizations in hospitality and tourism should be to recognize the requirements and desires of their workers in order to improve their satisfaction and commitment. Employee satisfaction is a significant predictor of organizational commitment. In order for managers and owners of travel agencies to increase the level of commitment of their employees, they must focus on all aspects of employee satisfaction, from pay, promotion opportunities, supervision, monetary and nonmonetary benefits, policies and procedures to co-worker relations, nature of work itself, and communication. Also, the need for continuous assessment of employee satisfaction, and commitment by management is emphasized. Working in a travel agency is in itself a challenging and dynamic job, having in mind that it implies continuous communication, both with internal and external customers. Management must build good relations with employees, encourage creativity, give a certain degree of autonomy, as well as the opportunity for further development and advancement. The fairness of the reward system should certainly be emphasized because the perception of unfair distribution can negatively affect the satisfaction and commitment of employees.

Limitations and future research
Finally, it is necessary to state the imperfection of the research. Firstly, the research has been conducted only in travel agencies and does not provide grounds for some more general conclusions. It is necessary to look for empirical evidence in other hospitality and tourism organizations, in order to confirm the findings from this research. Secondly, when it comes to internal service quality, this study has only measured employees ' perceptions of internal service quality through a modified SEVRQUAL model, but Parasuraman et al. (1985) emphasized the significance of studying the gap between expectations and perception, as helpful implications for managers. Therefore, future research needs to focus on studying expectations and perceptions of internal service quality, as well as how the d imensions of internal service quality individually contribute to organizational commitment. It is also necessary to investigate how different factors of employee satisfaction affect organizational commitment, as well as how these concepts affect the service quality that employees provide to external customers / final consumers.