GREEN PROCUREMENT AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AMONG MANUFACTURING SMES IN SOUTH AFRICA
Abstract
The ultimate reason for the need and importance of green procurement is to establish and develop an environmental management system for both environmental benefits and profit maximisation. Green procurement is about reducing waste and finding strategic means of being more efficient to reduce costs. This process of becoming more efficient can impact positively on an organisation’s customer relationship management, improve information quality and possibly reduce the rate of product returns. This is possible because, as the need for environmental sustainability increases, organisations that implement sustainable solutions are becoming more competitive and stand a better chance of higher levels of business growth. The research gap is that more organisations are going green in order to enhance their relationship with customers and their corporate reputation. In other words, as competition among organisations becomes more strategic, manufacturing SMEs that refuse to integrate a sustainable green procurement strategy or practice into their business operation might suffer, as customers would only buy from organisations that offer sustainable options. Because sustainable procurement involves collaborative relationships among all parties within a supply chain, developmental tools and techniques have been put in place and, as such, organisations are able to effectively manage and optimise customer relationship management, influence information quality to customers and enhance their reverse supply chain strategy. Green procurement strategies enable organisations to look out for materials, parts, products and production equipment based on price, environmental impact, quality as well as forward and reverse delivery solutions. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to determine the influence of green procurement on customer relationship management, information quality and reverse supply chain among manufacturing SMEs in Gauteng province. The reliability and validity of the measuring instrument will be tested using the measurement model assessment. This will be achieved through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). SEM will be used to test the model fit and hypotheses by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) version 24.0 to assess the measurement and the structural models. Finally, managerial implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are indicated.
Keywords: customer management, information quality, reverse supply chain, green procurement, social exchange theory.
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