Suppliers Sourcing Strategy and Sustainable Procurement Performance Among Kenya Tea Development Agency Factories in Region 5, Kenya

Abstract

Companies involved in a supply chain must coordinate their operations through adoption of inbound logistics strategies so as to enhance business performance. KTDA factories have adopted inbound logistics strategies with the aim of turning around their performance as well as reduce operational costs leading to sustainable procurement performance. However, despite this KTDA tea factories still experience wide variations in earnings. The drop in earnings and high variation in tea bonuses among factories has been blamed on operational cost at the factory. This points out that although inbound logistics have been adopted, they have not resulted in sustainable procurement performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between suppliers sourcing strategy and sustainable procurement performance. The study adopted correlation research design. The target population of the study was 188 staff drawn from the 16 KTDA managed Region 5 factories. A census method was used to collect data from the production managers, ICT managers, procurement Managers, leaf base managers, factory unit managers and directors using a structured questionnaire. The findings revealed that suppliers sourcing strategies had a positive significant correlation with sustainable procurement performance (r = 0.545, p < 0.05). The study recommends that KTDA sourcing strategies need to aligned to organizational sustainability goal, develop procedures and policies on material handling with sustainability goal. The results of this study may advice on policy formulation in relation to sourcing strategies and sustainable procurement performance. Other researchers may benefit from the literature on inbound logistics and sustainable procurement performance since the current study provided a basis for further studies