Driving Forces towards the Adoption of Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices: Empirical Evidence from Manufacturing Industries in Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the major driving forces and to exam-ine their effect on SSCM practices. Both inferential and descriptive research designs were used for this paper. The sample firms were selected by a pro-portional stratified sampling technique and from each sample firm, three re-spondents were selected purposively. Accordingly, valid data were collected via questionnaires from 420 respondents of 146 large-scale manufacturing firms. The findings signified that the major internal driving forces are social responsibility, interest to manage reputation and environmental-related risk, and desire to cut down costs, whereas; pressure from customers, government regulation and legislation, pressures from competitors, and international stan-dards are the major external driving forces. Both internal and external driving forces have a positive and significant effect on SSCM practices. Among SSCM practices, sustainable packing practices were found highly adopted by large- scale manufacturing firms in Ethiopia.