IMPACT OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON THE EXPORT PERFORMANCE OF THE TEXTILE CLOTHING INDUSTRY IN EGYPT

摘要

The management of a firm's network of suppliers has become most critical to its performance. With current globalization trends, temporary disadvantages of lack of modern production technology and processes are easily overcome through the increasingly rapid diffusion of technology and best practices across borders. What is still to be overcome are the disadvantages arising from sub-optimal institutional structures and management paradigms. Although Egypt enjoys comparative advantages of geographical proximity to key markets in the EU and a long tradition of high quality cotton cultivation and textile production, the Textile and Clothing (T&C) industry in Egypt is yet to achieve sustained competitiveness. There are no studies yet that empirically demonstrate how a management paradigm change towards a focus on Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices influences the performance of the T&C industry in the global market. The objective of this study is to investigate how a firm's SCM practices and the nature of the supply chain in a firm's particular industry, affects its export performance. The research seeks to extend the scope of previous studies on the T&C industry in Egypt by empirically validating a SCM/Export Performance model developed for Egypt. Building from the literature, the model measures the effect of particular SCM practices, nature of supply chain and diversity of supply chain on export performance using a sample of 65 T&C Egyptian firms. Furthermore, the research will investigate how the type of T&C sub sector and the choice of destination export market modify this impact on export performance. Findings show the SCM practices related to Quality of Information Sharing between the firm and members of its supply chain, followed by Strategic Supplier partnerships to be both significantly related to export performance of the T&C firms. Also, that the degree of vertical integration along the supply chain has a significant effect on export performance.