Author(s): Taweesak Roopsing, Thanapol Suk-kavessako
Aim: This research aims at developing a structural equation model of guidelines for garment industry management for sustainability.
Methodology: The study has been designed as a mixed-methodology research comprising 3 parts as qualitative research using in-depth interview, quantitative research using survey data collection, and qualitative research using focus group discussion. The sample of a survey involving quantitative data consisted of entrepreneurs or management executives in garment industry. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and multiple statistics were used in the study.
Finding: The results revealed that garment industry management for sustainability consisted of marketing management, innovation management, resource management, and manufacturing management. Each guideline had the highest mean score as follow: marketing management, i.e. customer needs analysis survey was used as supplementary data for product design; innovation management, i.e. information technology, both hardware and software, was brought to design products; resource management, i.e. provision of modern machinery being environmentally friendly for garment production; and manufacturing management, i.e. production quality was controlled to ensure that it meets international standards. Hypothesis test result indicated there was no statistically significant difference (p 0.05) among small, medium, and large size businesses giving importance to guidelines to garment industry management for sustainability.
Conclusion: The developed structural equation model consisting of 4 major components. All of the components are important to sustainability of garment industry management. The components are arranged in significant orders as marketing management, innovation management, resource management, and manufacturing management. No difference was found among different sizes of business giving importance to the 4 components. Development outcome of the structural equation model of guidelines to garment industry management for sustainability passed the criteria of assessment and was consistent with empirical data, chi-square probability was 0.077, relative chi-square was 1.181, goodness of fit index was 0.966, and root mean square error of approximation was 0.019.