Green purchasing practices: a study of e-procurement in B2B buying in indian small and medium enterprises

Abstract

Green Supply chain management is becoming reality from just been talked in the board rooms at the big corporate. Especially when it comes to a country like India, which is manufacturing intensive, a clear understanding about the current trends needs scientific research. This paper attempts to bring out the impact of important factors like Perception, Size of the company and Buying situation on adopting E-Procurement in Indian manufacturing SMEs. Since E-procurement calls for use of electronic media and avoids extensive use of paper and printing, this falls under the ambit of Green purchasing. The results show that Perception, Size of the company and buying situation do not impact the adoption of E-Procurement among the small and medium enterprises in India. Though they tend to use email and Internet to learn about the suppliers, they prefer traditional modes of procurement when it comes to actual buying. Procurement is characterized by a strong personalized relationship between the buyer and seller. Consequently, online procurement has not taken roots among the small firms in the manufacturing sector in India.