Purpose Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dominate the urban economic landscape and account for the majority of businesses in urban centers in many developing and developed nations. SMEs generate carbon emissions, which, when combined, exceed the carbon emissions produced by large firms. The majority of the SMEs in developing nations insource their freight delivery function, implying that they can have control over the carbon emissions generated using a number of parameters. Thus, the aim of the study was to investigate the impact of organizational environmental governance (OEG), freight delivery efficiency (FDE) and internal environmental communication (IEC) on the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices. Design/methodology/approach The study population consisted of SME manufacturing firms in the urban center (Kampala). An actual sample size of 105 SME manufacturing firms was used. Data were analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS 4. Findings From the analysis, a positive moderation effect for IEC in the OEG and FDE relationship was observed. Further, a full mediation effect of FDE was observed in the relationship between organization environmental governance and the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices. In addition, there was a positive moderated mediation effect of FDE in the relationship between organization environmental governance and the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices. Also, OEG positively influenced FDE and FDE positively influenced adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices. Research limitations/implications The study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices in SME manufacturing firms in the urban center in one of the Global South nations. SME manufacturing firms not located in the urban center were not targeted, given that the research aimed at providing an understanding of environmentally friendly freight delivery practice adoption of SME manufacturing firms in the urban centers and how their OEG, IEC and FDE contributed to the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices. Further, the research also aimed at establishing the FDE activities that work for SMEs in the urban center in a Global South context as well as the environmentally friendly freight delivery practices adopted by the SMEs. Whereas focus was put on SMEs in the urban center, even SME manufacturing firms in the rural centers may contribute to environmental emissions when moving their freight to the urban center, which is the largest market for many firms. Thus, there is a need to investigate whether SME manufacturing firms engage in environmentally friendly freight delivery practices and what their predictors could be. Originality/value The study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly freight delivery practices in SME manufacturing firms in urban centers. The majority of the SME firms do not outsource freight transportation but instead insource, implying that freight transportation is an in-house activity in these firms. Despite that, the majority of the research examines or focuses on the greening of outsourced freight transportation, and less attention is given to greening freight transport activities that are undertaken by SME firms themselves.
Namagembe et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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