The impact of corporate sustainable management activities on customer satisfaction and loyalty in the shipping sector

Abstract

The topic of corporate sustainability has been gaining popularity among many management researchers as it grows in importance to the commercial world. Innovation, strategy and management control are various fields where the issue of corporate sustainability has been previously studied. In this paper, the impact that Corporate Sustainability Management Activities (CSMA) has on Customer Satisfaction (CS) and Customer Loyalty (CL) in the shipping industry, with particular focus in the wet bulk sector, was studied in greater details. CSMA consists of three dimensions - Economic, Environmental and Social. A thorough literature review was done on CSMA, CS and CL and a model illustrating the relationship between the three constructs in the shipping sector was drawn up. To test the accuracy of the model, three hypotheses were developed and they were tested against the sample data collected. The three hypotheses are: H1: There is a positive correlation between CSMA and CS in the wet bulk shipping sector H2: There is a positive correlation between CS and CL in the wet bulk shipping sector H3: There is a positive correlation between CSMA and CL in the wet bulk shipping sector These hypotheses were tested quantitatively based on the results of the survey conducted with customer using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Bivariate Regression Analysis. The results were then compared with the qualitative findings derived from interviews with service providers. A final conclusion was then made based on the analysis between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the findings. Lastly, a comparison between the findings for the three shipping sectors, container, dry bulk and wet bulk sector was made. It was found that CSMA has a strong impact on CS and that only when CS is complemented with long term efforts and also by providing assurance to the customers, would it lead to CL. Thus, CSMA is a very important aspect which companies should also focus at in order to sustain in the increasingly competitive shipping industry. It was also suggested for future research to be carried out in the form of interviews as the views of the subject will not be limited by the question asked as compared to survey.