Green Supply Chain Management Practices And Competitiveness of Food Manufacturing Firms In Kenya

Abstract

Green Supply Chain Management are practices that can be used by companies to re-examine their purposes and create a favourable environmental image as manufacturing firms play an important role in the implementation of .sustainable options. Ho~ever, there has been. no research that exam incs whether the adoption of Green Supply Cham Management practices enhances the competitiveness of Kenya's food manufacturing firms, a gap that this research sought to fill. This research was guided by the following specific objectives: an examination of the effect of each of the various aspects of green supply chain; green purchasing, green manufacturing, green distribution and reverse logistics and how they determine firm competitiveness, as well as determining the moderation effect of green supply chain drivers on the relationship of green supply chain practices and firm competitiveness. This study focused on various theories: the resource-based theory, institutional theory, stakeholder theory and social network theory. The research used the positivism research philosophy and a cross­ sectional survey research design. Of the 181 food manufacturing firms that are listed in the Kenya Association of Manufacturers directory, 130 companies that strictly dealt with food processing or manufacture, were chosen for the study where the response rate was 73.8 percent. The questionnaire was the main data collection instrument and was subjected to both the reliability and validity tests. Collected data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The five hypotheses were presented and tested using chi-square and hierarchical multiple regression analysis and accepted at the 95 percent confidence interval. The results of this research indicated that there was a strong and significant relationship between the adoption of green supply chain practices and firm competitiveness in Kenya's food manufacturing sector. Furthermore green supply chain drivers do have a statistically significant moderating effect on the relationship between green supply chain practices and the competitiveness of Kenya's food manufacturing firms. The study further revealed that to be able to control environmental degradation and enhance sustainability, the government and relevant industrial policy makers should come up with incentives that would encourage the adoption of CjSCM practices by all manufacturing firms within the -country and not only food manufacturers. In practice firms should be encouraged to embrace voluntary periodical environmental reporting as this was found to encourage the adoption of green supply chain practices. This study validated the theories used. It also added to the Resource Based theory by showing that when firms adopted voluntary periodical reporting it was a basis of competitive advantage for the individual firms.