Probing into the role of leadership in team performance: The significance of internal marketing in higher education institutions

The concept of internal marketing, especially in developing economies, has been scarcely explored. Therefore, this study investigates the overlooked role of internal marketing as a mediator between knowledge-oriented leadership and team performance in higher education institutions. In other words, the intention of the study is to understand whether knowledge-based leadership directly or indirectly contributes to team performance in higher education institutions through the mediating role of internal marketing. Besides, the data collected in this study were collected from the faculty members of universities (public and private) in Pakistan, which consisted of 70 team leaders and 305 team members. The data were scrutinized by using Smart Partial Least Squares software 4. The results indicated that knowledge-oriented leadership has a positive impact on team performance in higher education institutions. Moreover, the finding shows that internal marketing mediates the relationship between knowledge-based leadership and team performance. The results of our study also highlight the need for knowledge-oriented leadership to configure their internal marketing, which leads to enhanced team performance. Therefore, the findings of our study add value to the literature on leadership and internal marketing.