Effect of Green Manufacturing on Operational Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

The study focused on the effect of green manufacturing on operational performance of manufacturing firms in Mombasa County. Green manufacturing is new manufacturing model adopted by manufacturing firms with a goal of enhancing their competitiveness by meeting the need of green customers effectively, reducing production, increasing flexibility and speed while enhancing environmental and sustainability performance. The concern is whether implementing green manufacturing leads to improvement in operational performance. Main objective of the study was to determine the effect of green manufacturing on operational performance of manufacturing firms. The study adopted Natural Resource Based View, Informational Theory and Ecological Modernization Theory as its theoretical foundations. The study adopted green design and development, efficient processes, GSCM and end-of-life management as independent variables. Green manufacturing is a comparatively new manufacturing model and there is a need to develop conceptual framework for the concept. Literature reviewed revealed that there is a conceptual and contextual gap since a greater percentage of the previous studies focused on either one industry or on other performance measures such as environmental or sustainability performance. To meet the objective, a cross-sectional survey design was adopted for the study where data was collected across all the 61 manufacturing firms listed by KAM in 2019. Data collected was majorly quantitative through usage of questionnaires. Response rate was 73.77%. Green product design and development, GSCM and efficient processes have significant effect in enhancing operational performance while end-of-life product management was found to have insignificant relationship with operational performance. It was found out that most of the manufacturing firms feared that as soon as the new technologies are adopted they would be obsolete, the firms experienced high short-term costs due to the sunk costs, inadequate resources was a challenge especially for small-sized manufacturing firms. Inadequate management support, inadequate green culture and uncertain future economic benefits and inadequate government policies and regulations were also cited among the respondents. The implementation of green manufacturing in totality leads to reduction in production cost, increased flexibility, increased speed and improved quality thus enhancing operational performance, which leads to the firm gaining competitive advantage.