Factors Influencing Coffee Growers ' (agents ' ) Performance on Quality: An Empirical Study of Coffee Growers with Evidence from Tanzania ' s Coffee Primary Societies/Associations

Abstract

Significance of this study is centered at making contribution to literatureon principal agent relationship by focusing on the relationship betweencoffee growers (agents) and principals (buying organizations). Thestudy investigates factors that influence quality performance of coffeegrowers (agents) such as: information sharing, monitoring andnegative external influence. The main purpose of this study is to providean insight on how farmers and buyers relationships can be enhancedin a better way to improve farmers ' performance on coffee quality.Literature review with respect to principal agency theory guidesthis study. The principal agency theory is used in formulating researchhypotheses, which provide foundation for testing developedassociations between coffee quality performance and informationsharing; as well as monitoring and negative external influence. Dataused in this study were collected from one hundred and thirty two (132)primary societies ' managers in Tanzania through interviews andquestionnaires. Preliminary data analysis through plot box wasconducted to remove outliers. Also reliability and validity were testedfor purpose of making this study worth. As this study adopted multipleregression analysis, then all assumptions underlying multiple regressionsuch as multicollinearity, homoscedasticity and Collinearity were testedand all portrayed that assumptions were adhered to.Empirical findings show that information sharing has a significantpositive association with coffee growers ' (agents ' ) performance.Monitoring has a significant positive association with coffee growers ' (agents ' ) performance on quality. The findings further indicate thatthere is a significant negative association between negative externalinfluence and coffee growers ' (agents ' ) performance on quality.Therefore, to improve performance of coffee growers (agents) thereshould be high information sharing and monitoring while learning onhow to respond positively to negative external influence.Quality management is the key driving factor of coffee price in theglobal market. Thus, all coffee supply chain actors should emphasizequality management aspect in all business processes. To ensure qualitymanagement among famers, then buying organizations should establishstrong information sharing and monitoring systems. Also, farmersshould learn how to positively respond to negative external influencein ensuring that coffee quality is not impaired by negative externalinfluence.