Total Quality Management Practices and Performance of Deposit Taking Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Mombasa County, Kenya

Savings and credit cooperatives are a crucial part of Kenya’s financial system. Compared to commercial banks, this is smaller but its significance is far much greater. Despite their important contribution towards the growth of the economy, many challenges are faced by the Saccos. Key among the drawbacks facing Savings and credit cooperatives is increased level of competition in the financial sector. The Savings and credit cooperatives to remain driven and focused in achieving their objectives, they have re-strategize their direction. The study sought to how Mombasa County deposit taking Saccos are impacted by TQM practices. Particularly, the study sought to examine how Mombasa deposit taking saccos’ performance was affected by Customer focus, employee involvement, supplier partnerships and commitment of top management. Performance was addressed from increased market share and revenue growth point of view. Quality improvement theory, Knowledge-based theory and RBV theories guided the research. A descriptive research design was employed. Board members and top managers of all the thirteen deposit taking Savings and credit cooperatives in Mombasa County were targeted. A census approach was used in identifying and subjecting all the County’s operational and registered Saccos. The preferred study respondents were then purposively selected CEOs, Branch managers, Operations Managers, Credit Managers and 4 Executive Board Members. As a result, the total respondents of the study were104, eight from each deposit taking Sacco. Primary data collection was by questionnaires and secondary data gotten from the Saccos’ financial statements and other reports. Analysis was by inferential and descriptive statistics and the primary analytical models were regression and correlation analysis. A wide performance disparity in the Saccos was discovered. It was demonstrated that Mombasa deposit taking saccos’ performance was affected by Customer focus, employee involvement, supplier partnerships and commitment of top management. The Determination Coefficient is at 0.785 implying that a variation of 78.5% in the SACCOs’ performance is explained by independent variables’ variability; customer focus, employee involvement, supplier partnership and commitment of top management. Pearson Correlation Analysis indicated that all TQM practices variables studied i.e customer focus, employee involvement, supplier partnership and commitment of top management and performance of deposit taking SACCOs positively related. Given that the study focused only on deposit taking saccos in Mombasa county, the results may not apply to all Saccos across Kenya. Therefore, it is recommended that a study is done cutting across all the Saccos in Kenya that would allow for broader generalization of findings. The findings will be beneficial to Managers, academicians, Investors, researchers, and the government as it will inform their decisions regarding the important subject of performance.

Relational impact of buyer–supplier dyads on sustainable purchasing and supply management: a proximity perspective

PurposeSustainable purchasing and supply management (SPSM) is a lever of sustainable development for companies and remains an interesting research issue that can be analysed from various perspectives. By considering the polymorphic concept of proximity as a theoretical support, this research studies the buyer–supplier dyad and aims to answer the following question. How does the diversity of buyer–supplier dyad relationships influence the SPSM of direct and indirect purchases within a manufacturing company?Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a qualitative approach founded on a matrix analysis to describe buyer–supplier relationships through the prism of the proximity concept. The field of study consists in a single case with embedded units including a manufacturing company and a sample of 13 suppliers of direct and indirect purchases.FindingsThe research reveals diverse combinations of proximities that characterise relationships between a buyer and suppliers of several purchasing categories. This diversity of relational contexts influences SPSM in different ways. The authors highlight three SPSM approaches labelled contractual, relational and embedded and describe practices carried out with suppliers as part of the different relational profiles.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is developed in a single perspective. To ensure that it can be generalised, it should be applied in other contexts supported by new case studies.Practical implicationsThe research provides practitioners with guidelines on building successful buyer–supplier partnerships in a sustainable view. The authors’ findings aid managerial decision-making by validating the necessity of adapting SPSM depending on buyer–supplier relational situations.Originality/valueThis paper offers an original study angle on buyer–supplier relationships based on a proximity analysis. The authors’ research confirms the variety of sustainable purchasing relationships underlined by the literature and can advance the portfolio approach to sustainable purchasing.

From Transactional to Transformational

This analysis of the supplier relationship between Drexel University and Aramark offers a demonstration of the potential for intensifying an anchor institution’s local economic inclusion strategies by leveraging the economic power of supplier partnerships. The operation of a major food service contract represents a substantial set of campus jobs and procurement, but this economic activity often remains outside the remit of economic inclusion efforts when the institution has no contractual influence over it. When an anchor institution can partner with a major supplier that shares a commitment to community impact, it offers opportunities to strengthen an anchor strategy. This article describes how Drexel University and Aramark used their campus food service relationship to deepen Drexel’s anchor mission and core strategic priorities and Aramark’s enterprise sustainability agenda, including the value of the negotiation process, and a set of outcomes in the form of initiatives in food insecurity, local economic inclusion and community engagement, research and technology transfer, and student co-op employment. Both the relationship building process and its outcomes offer a model for other institutions as they look to leverage the untapped economic activity of the major service suppliers.

Fairness of the NPD partnership’s financial distribution pie

Purpose Industry practice shows that buyer-supplier partnerships are negatively influenced by zero-sum pie-sharing competition. Interfirm rivalry vis-à-vis a fair financial distribution of the mutually generated partnership pie is a growing source of concern for firms because fairness has a direct effect on the competitiveness of a partnership. This study aims to examine the consequences of fairness in pie-sharing within buyer-supplier new product development (NPD) partnerships on product-innovation, product-quality and product-cost, as well as the mediating role of opportunism. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analyses are grounded on data from 147 NPD partnerships between Tier-1 suppliers and automotive manufacturers, using structural equation modeling with SPSS AMOS. Findings Findings indicate that pie-sharing fairness significantly influences the partnership’s ability to increase NPD effectiveness and efficiency. Moreover, unfairness in sharing the mutual pie showed to promote harmful opportunism, which negatively mediates the relationship between pie-sharing fairness and NPD performance. To control partners’ fairness perception in the first place, the analysis revealed three factors that affect pie-sharing fairness significantly, i.e. relationship induced financial performance, behavioral tension and interfirm dependency. Originality/value Exchange relationships are built on economic and social components, both of which can be combined within the construct of pie-sharing fairness. Firms must take an interest in their exchange partner’s equitable share of the mutually generated partnership pie, as pie-sharing fairness can be used to promote determinants of effectiveness and efficiency of their mutual NPD project. In a two-sided mutually contingent exchange behavior, the firm’s own welfare must be regarded as an interorganizational overlap with the partner’s, which can be optimized only by mutual efforts.

A Case Study in Collaborative Supplier Partnerships

Globally there are hundreds of convention centres, which host more than 24,000 different association meetings each year (International Congress and Convention Association, 2016). Unlike the hotel sector (Bohdanowicz-Godfrey, 2013) and tourism operations sector (Carlsen & Edwards, 2013a) which have documented “practices towards more sustainable modes of operation” (Carlsen & Edwards, 2013a: 33), little has been documented in the research literature about the collaborative potentials of a convention centre to deliver benefits beyond tourist visitation (Edwards et al., 2014; Mair & Jago, 2010). This case study makes a contribution to this research gap by examining a convention centre, International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney), with significant purchasing power to work with and influence suppliers in a backward supply chain. ICC Sydney’s Feeding Your Performance (FYP) initiative encourages environmentally sustainable behaviour as part of its organisational practices and supports and collaborates with a range of suppliers who are working to improve the agricultural ecosystems in their farming areas. Ecosystem is defined as “the minimum aggregated set of processes (including biochemical, biophysical and biological ones) that ensure the biological productivity, organisational integrity and perpetuation of the ecosystem” (Swift et al., 2004:115).