Effects of Service Quality, Corporate Image, and Customer Trust on the Corporate Reputation of Airlines

Song Song,Park Park,Ruan Ruan

doi:10.3390/su11123302

Abstract

With the continuously increasing demand for air travel, competition among airlines has increased as well. The purpose of this study is to examine empirically the causal relationships among the perceived service quality, corporate image, customer trust, and corporate reputation of Asiana Airline in South Korea using SERVQUAL measures. An onsite survey of Korean passengers was conducted. The results of this study reveal that responsiveness and reliability of service quality significantly affect corporate image and customer trust, whereas tangibles, empathy, and assurance of service quality are not significant antecedents of corporate image and customer trust. It is also found that corporate image and customer trust significantly affect corporate reputation. Based on these findings, theoretical importance and practical implications are discussed in this paper.

Highlights

The airline industry is one of the dominant service sectors in the world, serving 4.3 billion passengers who flew on 46.1 million flights in 2018, and at the beginning of 2019, revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 5.3% compared with that of 2018 [1,2]
This study employed the scale of SERVQUAL to reveal the process of improving corporate reputation by considering the corporate image and customer trust of Korea’s Asiana airline
The results of the current study indicate that, among the five service quality dimensions, responsiveness and reliability dimensions had a significant effect on corporate image and customer trust, whereas tangibles, empathy, and assurance had an insignificant effect on corporate image and customer trust

Summary

Introduction

The airline industry is one of the dominant service sectors in the world, serving 4.3 billion passengers who flew on 46.1 million flights in 2018, and at the beginning of 2019, revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 5.3% compared with that of 2018 [1,2]. Among the various marketing variables, service quality was proven to be one of the key factors in increasing the competitive advantage of airlines [4,5]. Providing high-quality service is an important marketing requirement, as it creates opportunities for airlines to build a positive corporate image and earn trust from passengers, retaining customer patronage [6,7]. It was generally confirmed that good service quality can lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty [8,9]. Another main purpose of providing better quality is to improve the competitiveness of an airline. The main purpose of the current research is to determine the influence of airline service quality on corporate reputation by using SERVQUAL and reputation quotient (RQ) measures

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion