Supply Chain Integration and Performance of Private Hospitals in Nairobi
Abstract
There has been a growing stress on SCM as a means through which firms can attain
competitive gain in market over the past decade. A great number of organizations have
made investments to make more efficient their supply chains with an aim of improving
customer contentment and add to their interior output. The current study sought after
determining how supply chain integration practices are utilized in private hospitals in
Nairobi and to determine the relationship between the supply chain integration and
performance of private hospitals in Nairobi. Three theories were used to give details on
the concept of supply chain integration: Systems theory, the Resource Dependence
Theory (RDT) and resource based view theory. The study used cross-sectional
descriptive survey research design to assess the effects of supply chain integration
practices on the performance of private hospitals in Nairobi. The target population of this
study was the 65 inpatient private hospitals in Nairobi (appendix II). Since the population
is not too large, the researcher proposed to do a census. The main instrument for data
collection was a structured questionnaire that allow for uniformity of responses to
questions. Data on supply chain integration was ranked while data on effects of the
dimensions on performance was analyzed by correlation. The researcher performed a
regression analysis to establish the relationship between the independent variables with
the dependent variable. Customer integration has highest impact on the performance of
private hospitals in Nairobi, followed by the supplier integrations and finally followed by
internal integration. The researcher believes that customer integration variable has the
highest impact refers to the managers awareness about the importance of customer
integration and its positive impact on the other two integration variables. There is a
strong positive relationship between supply chain integration and performance
dimensions of Private hospitals in Nairobi as shown on table 4.13(R= 0.777). In addition,
independent variables are correlated among themselves, and there are correlations
between them and the operational performance dimensions. Independent variables are
positively related to each other, the dependent dimensions are also positively related
among each other of them, and independent variables and dependent dimensions are also
positively related together. It is recommended that organizations should work more
closely with suppliers in order to increase the level of integration which in turn increases
the Operational Performance through linking both suppliers and organizations with
advanced information system to facilitate the flow of materials, information, and
experiences, in addition to control the inventory. It is recommended to pay greater
attention to the internal integration through the involvement of various departments in
formulating their strategic plans
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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