| dc.description.abstract | In today's competitive business, most of the firms increased focus on delivering more valuable
products compared to its competitors. This forces value chain management to be more responsive
in creating competitive advantage. Therefore A study titled “Value Chain Management and the
Competitiveness of Smallholder Plantation Forests farms : A Case study of smallholder
Plantation Eucalyptus Tree Farms in Kassanda Sub county- Mubende district was conducted
whose aim was to determine the extent to which value chain management influences
competitiveness of smallholder forest plantation farms. The study was guided by the following
research objectives which include: (1) To establish the effect of internal firms capabilities on the
competitiveness of smallholder plantation forest farms in Uganda, (2) To establish the effect of
coordination among value chain actors on the competitiveness of smallholder plantation forest
farms in Uganda. (3)To examine effect of sources of financing on the competitiveness of
smallholder plantation forest farms in Uganda.
Data was obtained from the selected tree farmers in Kassanda Sub County, Mubende District and
key informants from Ministry of Water and Environment, National Forestry Authority. A total of
118 respondents from a population of 150 participated in the study through filling the
questionnaires and answering the interview guide. The respondents were selected using simple
random sampling and purposive sampling was undertaken for key informant interviews. Data
collected, grouped, scrutinized and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively using statistical
Package for Social Scientists 17.0(SPSS). Descriptive statistics of frequency percentages, tables
and figures were the basis of quantitative data whereas qualitative data was interpreted by
substantiating the explanations from the respondents’ open responses.
From the correlation analysis, there is a positive and significant relationship between value chain
management and the competitiveness of smallholder plantation forest farms and the Regression
results confirmed this relationship when they revealed that internal firm capabilities influence
competitiveness of smallholder plantation forest farms by 30.8%, coordination among value chain
actors influenced competitiveness by 27.9% and finally sources of financing which stood out to
be of greatest influence by 60.4%.
Basing on the findings recommends the researcher recommends that future studies should be
made to ascertain how the value chain financing of plantation forestry for smallholder tree
farmers should be enhanced as it has been identified to have the greatest influence on the
competitiveness of smallholder plantation forest farm | en_US |
