Abstract:
Rubber industry, one of the growing industries in the world creates a vacuum to
exploit foreign markets especially for countries like Sri Lanka. However, lack of strategic
relationships and low quality products with higher cost keep Sri Lanka’s rubber industry
performance away from the global market. Since supply chain management (SCM) is
implicated in the issue of external relationships and quality management (QM) is
implicated in low product quality, the key aim of this study was to test the relationships
between SCM, QM and organisational performance, in the context of the rubber industry
in Sri Lanka. In particular, it empirically tested the mediating role played by SCM in the
relationship between QM and operational performance (OP) of rubber manufacturing
organisations though this relationship has already been established in theoretical
literature. Data was gathered through a questionnaire from managers of 44 firms in the
rubber products manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka. Data was analysed with the
descriptive and inferential statistical analyses. The results indicated that QM practices
and SCM practices improve OP while SCM practices are partially mediating the effect of
QM practices on OP. The results of this study help the rubber products manufacturing organisations in Sri Lanka to formulate successful strategies by enhancing the OP via
QM and SCM practices.
