A Study of the Relationship between Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Operational Performance of Retailers in Makonde District

Supply Chain Management is now a frequently encountered phrase these days, as managers strive to improve operational performance such that, a key feature of present day business is the idea that, it is supply chains that compete, not companies. Thus, the study determined the relationship between Supply Chain Management and operational performance of retailers in Makonde District. This was mainly because a number of retailers had been collapsing at an alarming rate. So, this drove the researcher to determine the kind, direction and strength of relationship between the Supply Chain Management (SCM) concept and operational performances in a way to sustain the retailers as the concept was gaining in popularity and importance in other parts of world like Brazil. SCM was bisected into three major components materials and services flow, information flow and payment flow to enable a detailed and critical review of related literature. On the other hand, operational performance was conceptualized using competitive priorities literature. Theoretical and empirical gaps were identified as literature was being reviewed such as lack of a universally accepted definition of SCM. A correlational research design alternatively regarded as associational research was used for the study together with a contemporary research philosophy known as critical realism. The population of the study of 582 individuals which resulted in a sample size of 59 retailers was from all the retail companies in Makonde District where information was collected through use of questionnaires. Theoretical review was done to open up analysis of past events in order to investigate the research problem. Three theories were reviewed in the study the coordination theory, Resource-Based View (RBV) and Relational View (RV). Basically, the research picked up from the point other researchers left off. Apart from what was argued by other prominent scholars in Supply Chain Management issues such as Lambert et al.2005 and Stock et al.2010 that, the concept of Supply Chain Management relatively lack the empirical evidence supporting the benefits attributed to Supply Chain Management. However this study empirically confirmed a positive relationship between Supply Chain Management (SCM) and operational performance of retailers in Makonde district in Mashonaland west province in Zimbabwe.