The Mechanism of Forming Corporate Customer Loyalty in Business-to-Business Relationships: A Study of Shipping Companies in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38035/gijea.v4i3.1013Keywords:
Customer Loyalty, B2B Relationships, Shipping Industry, Customer Satisfaction, PLS-SEMAbstract
: The shipping industry is a capital-intensive business-to-business (B2B) industry characterized by high operational risk and strong dependence on long-term relationships with corporate customers. This study aims to analyse the mechanism of customer loyalty formation in Indonesian shipping companies through the influence of commitment, trust, and relative dependence, both directly and indirectly through customer satisfaction as a mediating variable. The study tested 10 research hypotheses using a quantitative approach through an online cross-sectional survey and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis. Data were collected from 100 corporate customers of shipping companies in Indonesia selected using purposive sampling, with respondents consisting of companies that had experience in business-to-business (B2B) relationships with shipping companies. The results showed that 7 hypotheses were supported, indicating that commitment, trust, and relative dependence positively affect customer satisfaction, while customer satisfaction positively affects customer loyalty. In addition, commitment and relative dependence were found to have direct effects on customer loyalty, whereas trust did not have a direct effect on customer loyalty. In terms of indirect effects, customer satisfaction only mediated the relationship between trust and customer loyalty but did not mediate the relationships between commitment and relative dependence toward customer loyalty. These findings indicate that customer loyalty in the B2B shipping industry is not only formed through customer satisfaction, but also through relational commitment and structural dependence developed within long-term business relationships.
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