Abstract Purpose: Banking is a service-oriented and highly competitive industry that depends heavily on customer orientation for survival, and the success or failure of this industry revolves around its customers. Despite the intense competition between banks, a satisfactory tendency towards customer orientation is not visible from some employees who deal directly with customers. Contemporary literature and studies in the field of organizational marketing have strongly discussed the use of internal marketing program as one of the best ways to achieve employee customer orientation in an organization. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of internal marketing on customer orientation with the mediating role of environmental turbulence in Melli Bank branches in Ahvaz city. Method: The statistical population of the research is made up of all the employees of National Bank of Ahvaz branches, numbering 420 people. In order to calculate the number of samples, Cochran's formula was used as follows. The sampling method is simple random. The sample size was obtained using Cochran's formula for a limited population of 201 people. Therefore, 290 questionnaires were given to the sample members and finally 201 questionnaires were collected. In order to analyze the data, structural equation modeling has been used to examine the fit of the structural equation model. Results: The findings of the research show that internal marketing has an effect on customer orientation (0/53) and environmental turbulence (0/62). Also, environmental turbulence (49/0) had a significant effect on customer orientation. Finally, environmental turbulence played a mediating role in the effect of internal marketing on customer orientation. Added value: This research is the first study in the field of investigating the effect of internal marketing on customer orientation with the mediating role of environmental turbulence in Melli Bank branches in Ahvaz city. It is suggested that similar studies be conducted in other organizations to compare the results and check their generalizability.

internal marketing customer orientation environmental turbulence Melli Bank branches in Ahvaz city