Agility, organisational learning culture and relationship quality in the port sector

Abstract

This paper introduces and investigates the potential mediating role of agility in the relationship between organisational learning culture and customer relationship quality (RQ). The proposed model and its relationships were tested on a sample of 168 employees from a major European port using structural equation modelling. The results corroborated that the capacity of a firm to develop a quality relationship with its customers is indirectly associated through agility with its learning culture. This study, following the organic view of the firm, highlights that employee and organisation learning is a necessary but not sufficient condition to enhance RQ, especially in unpredictable and fast-changing environments. Firms should also have the ability to be agile, or to continually adjust their internal structures and systems to respond to change and build quality relationships with their customers.

Keywords:

• agility
• organisational learning culture
• relationship quality
• shipping

Notes

1 ‘A dynamic capability is the firm's ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly change environments' (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997, p. 516).