The Empirical Study of Relationship Marketing in Maritime Transportation Service

Maritime transportation is one of the most important services in the international trade, especially for international cargo transportation. Literature reviews extract several components of trust and commitment for study. Theoretical foundations are drawn from the commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing to find out the key factor, the relationship result of cooperation. A conceptual model of business to business (B2B) is established to address new Key Mediating Variables (KMV) paradigm of the relationship marketing in maritime transportation service. Research findings reveal that (1) cognition-based and affect-based trusts are positively related to both normative and affective commitment respectively, but are negatively related to continuance commitment. The result infers that some moderated variables might exist; (2) perceived cognition-based and affect-based trusts are the fundamental factors of inter-organizational cooperative intention. Theoretical and managerial implications together with limitations and future suggestions for research are also discussed in the conclusion.