Total Cost of Ownership Adoption and Organisational Performance in the Haulage Transport Sector: Evidence from Harare, Zimbabwe
Abstract
Fleet management decision-making in Zimbabwe's haulage sector remains disproportionately driven by vehicle purchase price, with insufficient systematic attention accorded to the four lifecycle cost dimensions constituting Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): TCO knowledge and general adoption, vehicle acquisition D\decision quality, maintenance and repair management, and fleet usage and fuel management. This quantitative, cross-sectional study administered a validated five-point Likert-scale questionnaire to 50 respondents drawn from four purposively selected haulage companies in Harare, Zimbabwe. Data were analysed using pearson correlation coefficients and hierarchical multiple linear regression. The four TCO constructs and the novel Fleet Cost Integration Score (FCIS) collectively explain 61.4% of the variance in organisational performance (R² = 0.614, p < .001). Vehicle acquisition decision quality (β = 0.341, p < .001) and maintenance and repair management (β = 0.298, p < .001) emerged as the strongest independent predictors of organisational outcomes. The findings provide empirical support for the Contextual Lifecycle Cost Rationalism (CLCR) framework, which advocates locally calibrated, infrastructure-sequenced TCO adoption of volatile emerging-market logistics environments.
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