Effect of inventory management practices on organizational performance in ethiopian universities

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of inventory management practices on organizations performance of some selected universities in Amhara region, Ethiopia. In recent years, many firms in the world have faced several challenges particularly in inventory management, thus affecting their operational performance. After developing the conceptual framework, identifying the constructs and finalizing the questionnaire based on a good reliability obtained during the pilot study, it was decided that the survey would be conducted in the study area. A total of 304 responses were collected. The sampling design used in this study was random sampling with a technique of stratified random sampling technique. A quantitative approach using SPSS were used to analyse the data collected. Both descriptive statistics like percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviations and inferential statistics such as regression and correlation analysis were used to tests the hypotheses and answer the research questions. From theresearch findings, thestudy concluded thatall the independent variablesstudied have a significant effect on organizations performance as shown by strong coefficient of correlation and regression with a p value less than 0.01. The overall effect of the analysed factors or variables was positive as indicated by coefficient of determination. This indicates that the studied independent variables have significant effect on influencing the organizations performance of those universities. The multiple regression analysis reveals that those independent variables namely: good policies and procedures, properdocumentation, employee skill, inventory management techniques, proper funding, and warehouse operation efficiencyexplained statistically significant portion of the variance associated with the extent of organizations performance. The research study establish that those universities should embrace effective inventory management practice this is because of effective management of inventory has overall effect on enhancing organizations performance. The study further concluded that employee skill and proper documentations plays the most significant role in influencing the organizations performance of those selected universities. Since inventory accounts a huge capital of an organization those universities need to have a good management in the overall flow of its resource from initial purchase through final usage. Those universities should have prompt and accurate recording of every inventory in the university. There should be professionally qualified staffs in the university to properly safeguard inventory. Those universities should hold as little inventory as possible and make their organizations run well and even determine how much they do have in their store and determine for how long it will serve them.