MEDIATING IMPACT OF PROCUREMENT PRACTICES ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN E-PROCUREMENT TECHNOLOGIES AND PROCUREMENT PERFORMANCE OF APPAREL INDUSTRY IN SRI LANKA

One of the most powerful and vital sectors in Sri Lanka, the apparel industry creates jobs and stabilizes the country’s economy. From the purchase of raw materials through the delivery of the finished product, the entire procurement process is crucial to supply chain management and decision-making. Use of electronic procurement technologies (EPT), procurement practices, and procurement performance are the three key factors that affect this process.
This research aims to explore the degree of E-procurement technology usage of apparel sector and study the impact of EPT and procurement practices on procurement performance as well understand the effectiveness of procurement practices and procurement performance. It will also investigate the mediating effect (if any) of procurement practices on the relationship between EPT and procurement performance. As procurement performance will depend on the dynamics of the use of EPT and procurement practices, it is considered to be the dependent variable while EPT and procurement practices were identified as independent and mediator variables, respectively.
With the assistance of three major clothing firms in Sri Lanka, the study was carried out to evaluate these predictions. An online survey created with Google Forms was distributed to a random selection of management staff members. The information collected from 40 respondents. Regression was used to evaluate the correlations while factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha was conducted to examine the validity and reliability. Sobel’s test will carried out to measure the Mediator effect. The data has shown that there is a high level of usage of EPT with the apparel sector. The data analysis has provided evidence for statistically significant positive effect of EPT on the procurement performance (p < .001). It also showed that there is a statistically significant positive effect of procurement practices on the procurement performance (p < .001). On the question of whether procurements practices will have mediating effect on the relationship between the degree of EPT and procurement performance, it was found that there is a statistically significant mediator effect (p = .003). The study shows that investment on new technologies and efficient procurement practices will have a significant impact on the company’s procurement performance.