Do corporate sustainable management activities improve customer satisfaction, word of mouth intention and repurchase intention? Empirical evidence from the shipping industry

Abstract

Purpose As the concept of corporate sustainable management activities (CSMA) has become an increasingly important element of corporate management, much attention has been paid to its impact on customer relationship. Although there exists many studies concentrating mainly on the environment aspect of CSMA, only a few address the three dimensions of CSMA (environmental, social and economic) and examine their comprehensive impact on relationship marketing. In an attempt to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the influence of CSMA on customer satisfaction (CS), word of mouth intention (WOMI) and repurchase intention (RI). Design/methodology/approach The data come from 214 shipping industry practitioners (shippers, freight forwarders and third party logistics service providers in South Korea). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to test the impact of CSMA on CS, WOMI and RI. Findings Based on a survey conducted in South Korea, the findings indicate that environmental and economic aspects of CSMA play a significant role in enhancing CS and the enhanced CS positively affects WOMI and RI. Research limitations/implications As the field data were obtained from only one industry, future replication of the findings to other industries should consider industry-specific factors, if applicable. Practical implications The results highlight several implications for shipping industry practitioners to consider when establishing the strategy for effective corporate sustainable management to enhance CS. Originality/value This study is one of the first empirical attempts to explore how CSMA affects CS in the shipping industry. In addition, this paper empirically investigates the influence of CS on WOMI and RI.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Findings from the Vietnamese Paint Industry

“…The findings demonstrate that EMPs do not have a direct impact on customer satisfaction. This finding is not in line with reference [79]. It was also indicated that paint companies with favorable reputations will not positively influence customer commitment or customer satisfaction.…”

“…Environmental management activities are continuously regulated with high levels of compliance; high compliance regulation is necessary when delivering products and services [77] because it ensures complete satisfaction for business customers and individual users [78]. In a recent study on the shipping industry in Korea [79], it was found that the environmental aspect of corporate sustainable management activities plays an essential role in stimulating business customer satisfaction. Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:…”

Social Sustainability Practices on Small Businesses in Developing Economies: A Case of South Africa

“…Secondly, a positive and significant association was also established between social sustainability and customer satisfaction performance in SMEs. Equally, this means that achieving customer satisfaction amongst SMEs is now somewhat determined by social sustainability practices [54,55]. Lastly, employee satisfaction was closely associated with social sustainability practices.…”

Kim Olduğunu Görebiliyoruz! Tüketimin Sosyal Görünürlüğünün Tüketici Marka Kimliği, Ağızdan Ağıza İletişim ve Marka Sadakatine Yansımaları

“…Kudeshia and Kumar (2017) found that content created by users in the social media affected other users' brand attitudes and purchasing intentions. In the literature, the fact that the word-of-mouth communications have an impact on repurchase intentions of the customers is supported by findings of the studies on products and brands that have quite different characteristics (Mao and Lyu, 2017;Shin et al, 2017). In this context, the research hypothesis generated is as follows.…”