Supply chain management and organizational performance: Evidence from SMEs in South Africa

ABSTRACT The salutary impact of adopting supply chain management best practices (SCMBPs) on organizations is well documented. However, similar studies on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially in underdeveloped/developing economies are relatively scant in the extant literature. This is despite the well- documented role of SMEs in stimulating economic growth and competitiveness in developing economies such as South Africa. This empirical study employed a total of 407 randomly selected South African SMEs to investigate the relationships between SCMBPs, supply chain agility, risk management and supply chain performance in South African SMEs. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the most extensive empirical study on the subject undertaken for an emerging economy in Africa and the only one that studies the relationships between these supply chain issues. Structural equation modeling indicated that the adoption of SCMBPs predicted better supply chain performance. This clearly underscores the importance of SCMBPs adoption, even for SMEs in an underdeveloped/developing economy.