Impact of Sustainable Logistics Practices on Organizational Performance of Large-Scale Companies in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Present day business environment evolves globally and competitively than the past eras with shorter or small life cycles and less time to market. Further, modern consumers are well experienced and well informed of the market they are dealing with. Consumers orientation towards environmental impact and sustainability has also increased. Therefore, the organizations are giving more attention and value to the environmentally friendly products and activities that are initiated by their companies. Introduction of Sustainable Logistics Practices (SLP) is another strategy organization use to achieve their sustainability and stability goals (Gunarathne & Priyashani, 2018). Yet, there is a lack of evidence in the Sri Lankan context on the impact of sustainable logistics practices with organizational performance (Zhu & Sarkis, 2004). Thus, this study is aiming at investigating the impact of sustainable logistics practices on organizational performance of large-scale companies in Sri Lanka. Apart from the subject and the industry, many researchers have used a specific geographical area as a criterion to decide the scope. However, here authors have mainly focused on the industry because it would give a clear and unbiased result because the authors have also specifically taken the companies, which, ISO 14000 certified, where they are mostly large-scale organizations located all around Sri Lanka. This research uses a quantitative testing approach, with the deductive reasoning approach. A cross sectional study was carried out with a sample of 127 large scale companies selected out of a total population of 193. Sample size was determined by using Krejcie and Morgan sampling calculation. The data collection tool was a questionnaire. To test the six hypotheses developed with six independent variables (Green Warehouse Management, Green Transportation, Green Procurement, Green Office Management, Green Packaging Management, and Reverse Logistics), PLS-SEM was used with SmartPls and SPSS tools. Data supports all the hypotheses except one hypothesis was supported by. Therefore, according to the research findings, green transportation has no impact on organizational performance but other independent variables have influenced organizational performance. Thus, the findings of this study provides significant and insightful implications to the supply chain and logistics professionals and practitioners to improve their performances.