Corporate Environmental Practices, Stakeholders’ Collaboration and Perceived Sustainable Competitiveness in Kenya’s Tea Sector

Abstract

Production and processing of tea in an environmentally friendly manner; through collaboration is a concern among stakeholders for sustainable competitiveness. Tea is one of the leading foreign exchange earners in Kenya; however, the effect of corporate environmental practices on its sustainable competitiveness has not been established. The purpose of the study was to determine the moderating effect of stakeholders’ collaboration on the relationship between corporate environmental practices and sustainable competitiveness in tea sector of Kenya’s economy. The objectives of the study were to; evaluate the effect of process adaptation, product adaptation, managerial control mechanism and training on sustainable competitiveness of tea firms; and to evaluate the moderating effect of stakeholders’ collaboration on the relationship between corporate environmental practices and sustainable competitiveness in tea firms. This research utilized the resource based view, resource dependency and stakeholder theories. The study targeted 1883 respondents from 107 registered tea firms in Kenya and multistage sampling method was used to get sample size of 484. Primary data was collected using questionnaires. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. There was a positive significant effect of process adaptation (β=0.300; p=0.000), product adaptation and (β = 0.118; p=0.001), managerial control mechanism (β= 0.114; p=0.003) and training (β =0.4116; p=0.000) on sustainable competiveness in tea firms. The stakeholders’ collaboration moderates the relationship between corporate environmental practices and sustainable competitiveness in tea firms in Kenya (β=0.243 p=0.000). But there was a negative significant moderation of stakeholders’ collaboration on sustainable competitiveness and product adaptation (β= -0.113; p=0.001), managerial control,mechanism (β= -0.128; p=0.000), and training (β = -0.110; p=0.011) in tea firms. However, no significant moderation exist on process adaptation (β= -0.014; p=0.557). The corporate environmental practices positively influence the sustainable competitiveness in tea firms. The moderation effect of stakeholders’ collaboration on sustainable competitiveness and product adaptation, managerial control mechanism and training in tea firms was negative. It was concluded that corporate environmental practices leads to sustainable competitiveness however stakeholders’ collaboration significantly antagonize this relationship hence need for further research to ascertain the moderating results. Managers of tea firms should pay close attention to the strategies of process, product adaptation, managerial control mechanism and training that enhance sustainable competitiveness and the moderating roles with stakeholders’ collaboration as they were negative and significant in this study.