A Blockchain-Enabled Transparency Framework for Maritime Supply Chains: Quantifying Its Impact on Trust, Customer Loyalty, and Operational Efficiency Under Uncertainty

Maritime supply chains are facing increasing structural fragmentation and operational complexity, which has elevated transparency from a technical feature to a critical requirement for performance and coordination. Persistent limitations in data integrity, restricted visibility across stakeholders, and weak inter-organizational trust continue to undermine both efficiency and customer retention, despite ongoing digitalization efforts. This study develops a blockchain-enabled transparency framework and empirically evaluates its impact on trust formation, customer loyalty, and operational efficiency in maritime logistics. Transparency is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct encompassing data immutability, real-time accessibility, decentralized verification, traceability, and smart contract automation. A quantitative approach is adopted, combining Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling with system dynamics-based scenario simulation. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from ۲۱۴ stakeholders, including shipping companies, port operators, and freight forwarders. The results show that blockchain-enabled transparency has a strong and statistically significant effect on inter-organizational trust (β = ۰.۶۸, p < ۰.۰۰۱), which in turn acts as the primary driver of customer loyalty (β = ۰.۵۴, p < ۰.۰۰۱). A direct but weaker effect on loyalty is also observed (β = ۰.۲۹, p < ۰.۰۰۱), indicating partial mediation. Transparency further enhances operational efficiency (β = ۰.۶۱, p < ۰.۰۰۱), reducing processing time by ۲۳.۷% and documentation errors by ۳۱.۴%. Simulation results confirm that these gains intensify under demand uncertainty by stabilizing system performance. The study establishes a quantified link between blockchain-enabled transparency and both behavioral and operational outcomes, positioning transparency as a trust-generating mechanism with direct implications for resilience and coordination in maritime logistics systems.

کلیدواژه ها:

Blockchain ، Maritime Supply Chains ، Transparency ، Trust ، Customer Loyalty ، Operational Efficiency ، Supply Chain Resilience ، Smart Contracts ، Digital Transformation ، Information Asymmetry