The Interplay Between Supplier Management Practices and Customer Satisfaction: An Empirical Investigation of the Banking Industry in a Developing Country

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the interplay among supplier quality management (SQM), supplier relationship practices (SRP), process management (PRM), and customer focus (CF) within the value chain of the banking industry in a developing country perspective and to identify how these factors influence customer satisfaction (CS). Empirical data have been collected through a structured questionnaire from 463 bank employees of a developing country using a nonprobability convenience sampling strategy. The study employs a structural equation modeling approach to analyze the relationship between endogenous and exogenous variables. The study finds that SRP, PRM, and CF have a significant positive influence over CS. It also highlights that SQM has a significant positive relationship with the SRP and PRM. The study reveals that PRM mediates the relationship partially between SQM & CF and SQM & CS. Further, CF mediates the relationship partially between PRM and CS, while SRP mediates the relationship partially between SQM and CS. The findings of this research provide valuable insight into the stakeholders associated with the banking sector and policymakers regarding the importance of supplier management practices, particularly enabling the banks of emerging economies to understand the influence of SQM and SRP on guiding PRM, CF, and CS. The study only focuses on one developing country perspective and one specific industry, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other contexts. Future research could expand the scope to include multiple developing countries and industries to validate the findings and investigate the moderating effect of contextual factors on the relationships between SQM, SRP, PRM, CF, and CS.

Keywords:

• Banking sector
• customer focus (CF)
• customer satisfaction (CS)
• process management (PRM)
• supplier quality management (SQM)
• supplier relationship practices (SRP)

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abul Bashar

Dr. Abul Bashar is an Associate Professor of Management, School of Business at Independent University, Bangladesh. He served as a senior lecturer and Head of School, School of Mechanical and Automobile Engineering at college WIT, Malaysia. He also worked with Brown & Root, Gulf E.C and Nass Industrial Services, Bahrain as a scheduling engineer and senior planning engineer, respectively. Dr. Bashar started his career with Bangladesh Security Printing Press Corporation, Gazipur as an Assistant Manager, in production planning and control. His research interests include Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II), Lean Manufacturing, Project Management and Total Quality Management (TQM).

Md. Mahbubur Rahman

Md. Mahbubur Rahman is an undergraduate student of the Department of Organization Strategy and Leadership, University of Dhaka. His previous publication was a bibliometric analysis on FinTech. Mr. Rahman is particularly interested in the areas of strategic management, Technology Management, sustainability, and human resource management.

Md. Nazmus Sakib

Md. Nazmus Sakib is a lecturer of Management at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interests center on sustainability. He has published particularly in journals, i.e., International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Cleaner Production, Sustainability, and Heliyon. He has strong experience conducting systematic reviews and bibliometrics analyses in the field of human resources. Mr. Sakib is performing different grant projects, including circular economy, lean manufacturing, and total quality management.