Abstract
This research investigates how hotels in the Pakistan hospitality industry mitigate food waste in their supply chains and improve sustainable performance by implementing integrated lean supply chain practices. This research fills the research and practical gaps by examining the direct impact of supplier, internal, and customer lean practices on sustainable development.Additionally, integrated lean practices support the hotel industry in mitigating food waste. In Pakistan, nearly 36 million tons of annual food waste are generated, whereas 6 out of 10 individuals are impoverished from food insecurity (Farooq et al., 2023). About 40% of this waste is edible food in hotels is wasted (Aamir et al., 2018). Furthermore, the managerial and operational staff moderation role is investigated in implementing integrated lean practices.
This research builds on three theories. Based on the Natural resource base view theory, this research investigates how the lean supplier, internal, and customer practices in the hotel food supply chain impact sustainable development by considering the three pillars (economic, social, and environmental). The stakeholder theory is adopted to analyze the managerial attitude in lean implementation for hotel food waste mitigation and sustainable development. Finally, the theory of planned behavior underpins the operational staff attitude towards lean implementation for hotel food waste mitigation and sustainable development. Therefore, the following research questions are developed:
RQ1: Do integrated lean practices influence hotels' operations to attain sustainable development?
RQ2: Do integrated lean practices impact hotels' food waste, leading to sustainable development?
RQ3: Does hotel food waste mitigation impact sustainable development?
RQ4: Does managerial attitude moderate towards LSC implementation for hotel food waste mitigation and SD?
RQ5: Is operational staff attitude moderate towards LSC implementation for hotel food waste mitigation and SD?
The proposed framework was empirically tested using survey questionnaires. Questionnaires were sent out to the 400 identified 3,4, and 5-star hotels in Pakistan, and data were obtained from owners, managers, and the person responsible for their food supply chain via an online Google form. In total, 278 usable responses were received.
This study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to test hypotheses. The results show that three dimensions of integrated lean supply chain practices positively affect sustainable development. Findings also illustrate that implementing lean practices in the Pakistan hotel industry positively impacts food waste mitigation. Moreover, the findings of this research show that managerial attitude is moderate between supplier lean process and internal lean practices implementation. Still, no association was found between customer lean process and sustainable development. Likewise, the managerial attitude toward lean supply chain (LSC) implementation positively correlates with hotel food waste mitigation. On the other hand, Operational staff attitude does not moderate between supplier lean process and internal lean practices; however, it has a positive association between customer lean process and sustainable development. Furthermore, the attitude of the operation staff in LSC implementation for food waste mitigation shows positive results. Finally, this study proves that internal and external lean practices equally contribute to sustainable organizational performance and support operational streamlining and value-adding activities. Accordingly, this research finding has various theoretical and practical contributions. Under the umbrella of NRBV theory, it contributes to lean, supply chain, waste management, and sustainable development literature. The finding shows that lean practices must be considered when integrated into sustainable development. The results show that the supplier lean process is positively associated with the hotel's economic performance and negatively associated with social performance. Likewise, the internal and customer lean processes are positively associated with all three sustainability pillars. Secondly, from the supply chain perspective, the supplier, internal, and customer practices envision utilizing organizational resources, thus improving food-related operations and performance, enhancing food waste reduction, and therefore, the hotel's daily operations to meet the sustainability goals. Thirdly, hotel food waste mitigation is positively associated with sustainable development. Moreover, the managerial attitude toward lean supply chain implementation is associated with the stakeholder theory. The results illustrate that managerial intervention in implementing integrated lean supply chain practices is positively associated with the supplier and internal lean practices for sustainable development. However, it is negatively associated with customer
lean process and sustainable development. On the other hand, lean implementation with managerial efforts positively complements the mitigation of hotel food waste. Finally, regarding the theory of planned behaviour, the hotel operational staff intervention in integrated lean supply chain practices implementation identifies the critical waste point from the customer end to support sustainable development. Conversely, the supplier and internal lean practices do not favour staff intrusion for lean implementation and sustainable development. Likewise, the results of hotel food waste mitigation with integrated lean practices and staff interference support the downstream of the supply chain. Still, they are not positively associated with the internal and supplier lean process. Alongside the theoretical contributions, this research has made numerous contributions to hotel industry practitioners regarding their food supply chain performance improvement. The results reveal that supplier lean process is significantly associated with economic sustainability but negatively impacts environmental and social sustainability. Similarly, internal and customer lean practices positively correlate with sustainable development. This research demonstrates that it is decisive to implement the supplier, internal, and customer lean processes synergistically to eliminate waste and improve sustainability. This result illustrates that a lean supply chain stimulates internal operational performance and firm external collaboration. Thus, the manager should simultaneously embrace the integrated lean supply chain approach in the hotel SC process to gain the maximum competitive advantages and improve SD. This research develops an integrated business model that includes the upstream, internal, and downstream supply chain stakeholders from the NRBV perspective. It provides a road map for policymakers still searching for sustainable performance. Therefore, the proposed framework could be employed in the hospitality industry to assist in adopting the lean-related program. Such adoption will enable policymakers to focus on internal operations and integrate the supply chain partners in their strategic plans. Thus, developing collaborative strategies and R&D with suppliers for mutual benefits. Also, training programs should be designed for hotel employees to enhance their awareness of sustainability and to adopt related practices in their daily operations to reduce waste through value- adding actions. Further, customer integration should be the aim of strategies to develop the bottom-up plan for the hotel supply chain for continuous improvement. Such methods enable the policymakers to interlink the Lean techniques across the hotel supply chain for resource allocations, pull production, JIT, and smooth process flow, ultimately leading to SD.
Date of Award | 10 Sept 2024 |
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Original language | English |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisor | Wantao Yu (Director of Studies), Nasrin Asgari (Co-Supervisor) & Oznur Yurt (Co-Supervisor) |
Keywords
- Food waste
- hospitality industry
- Lean supply chain