Construct of social capital on perceived decision making effectiveness in strategic supply chain decisions: With special reference to selected apparel sector international entities in Sri Lanka

Strategic supply chain management is one of the key business functions in almost every manufacturing organization. The research expecting to explore the relationship between social capital and the perceived effectiveness of strategic supply chain decisions in Sri Lankan apparel sector organizations. With respect to the positivism paradox research has been organized in line with the deductive approach. Further survey strategy through a pre-tested questionnaire has been imbedded with the sample of 122 participants from the apparel sector supply chain professionals, which is regulated by Krejcie & Morgan. This study can be recognized as a validation of the past studies within the Sri Lankan context. The statistical analysis depicts an existence of a direct positive linkage between perceived effectiveness and individual decision maker’s social capital which approves the existing literature in the Western context. The study has contributed to the knowledge domain of strategic management, supply chain management, and organizational behavior by identifying the factors and how they influence strategic decision making.


Background of the study
Strategic supply chain decisions refer to the strategic supply chain decisions taken by senior executives and their management teams of an organisation. These shape the firm's general direction (Mitchell, Shepherd, & Sharfman, 2011) because these decisions have cascading effects on the entire organisation through all hierarchical levels. The quality of strategic decision making by a company's leaders may have an enormous impact on its position relative to its rivals (Singleton, 2013).
However, evidence suggests that senior executives and their management teams fail frequently and often remarkably when making strategic decisions (Carmeli, Tishler, & Edmondson, 2012). One such example was the Nigerian Textile industry, where most of the local textile firms were shut down due to poor make or buy decisions made by the management, which has caused the increased cost of production lead to financial losses and products being not competitive along with the international firms (Okpala, Mlanga, Nwajiuba, Osanebi, & Ezemoyih, 2019). To specify the scope of the study, the Textile and Apparel industry in Sri Lanka has been selected because it is one of the oldest (Bala, et al., 2019) export industries in the global economy (Seram, Nanayakkara, & Lanaroll, 2019;Bala, et al., 2019), which caters the basic human need of clothing.

The Apparel industry in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is a developing nation where the country's real GDP is not appealing in relation to other countries in the region. The economy and the growth rates were adversely affected due to various shocks and the April terrorist attacks intensified macroeconomic challenges (The World Bank, 2019). There is more impact of the apparel industry than other industries on the country's total export earnings considering its contribution to its gross domestic production (GDP) through export revenue generation. Therefore, the research has found that the Apparel industry can to make an impact on the economy of Sri Lanka (Embuldeniya, 2015). Apparel exports are the most significant and dynamic contributor for Sri Lanka's economy in the current context, contributing to 40% of the total exports and 52% of industrial products exports (Sri Lanka Export Development Board, 2019), serving many globally recognised brands such as Victoria's Secret, GAP, Liz Claiborne, Next, Jones New York, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, the Sri Lankan apparel sector towards the economy (the terms apparel sector includes textiles, garments and textile articles).

Figure 1: Trend in apparel sector imports and exports from 2010 -2018
Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2019 As the apparel industry faces growing supply chain pressures, a combination of technological innovation and industry expertise is essential to achieve supply chain optimization (Slangerup, 2019), where a firm's sustainability largely depends on supply chains (Ulgen, Bjorklund, Simm, & Forslund, 2019). Efficient management of supply chains has become increasingly important in the apparel sector (The World Bank, 2012).

Textile and Apparel (T&A) supply chain & supply network
A supply chain is a complex system with many functions, activities and organizations (Allaoui, Guo, & Sarkis, 2019). Typical supply chains consist of all organisations and people who are involved in the process of converting the raw materials to finished goods and being delivered to the end consumers, including the related after-sales services. Apparel supply chains are becoming increasingly global and involved a with large number of partners (Nath, Eweje, & Bathurs, 2019), which produce both physical products and also a combination of time, place, and form of function of a product or service. Therefore, it's become the key element of the overall strategy for the entire chain (Ozlen & Handukic, 2013). A typical fashion supply chain includes raw material farmers/producers, fibbers and textile producers, apparel manufacturers, transporters, warehouses, and retailers (Shen& Mikschovsky, 2018). Apparel businesses report having about 1,000-2,000 suppliers on average, which could add up to a figure between 20,000-50,000 with sub-suppliers (Slangerup, 2019).
Further, they consist of a wide variety of raw materials, facilities for ginning, spinning and extrusion processes, processing facilities, weaving and knitting sectors, and garment manufacturing for supplying products to a vast distribution channel, one of the most diversified regarding usage of raw materials, technologies/techniques employed and the production of final products (Raut, Gardas, & Narkhede, 2019). Further, Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis & Schonberger (2019) identified production planning, inventory control, materials control, work scheduling, quality control, and operations analysis as supply chain related decisions. Therefore, strategic supply chain decisions play a crucial role in organisational performance, especially, in turbulent times such as the current COVID-19 global pandemic situation.

Problem statement and objectives of the study
Decision maker's experience, knowledge, availability to gather explicit details and support network will help the person to make a confident decision. A wrong strategic decision, which was made by the top management, could affect the entire organization because the strategic decisions have an impact on the whole organization, and may have long term impacts which could critically affect the organization and may have important consequences on organizational performance (Jansen, Curseu, Vermeulen & Geurts, 2011). Therefore, it is important that the decision makers have to be self-confident about their decisions where decision maker's perception about the effectiveness on their decision has a major impact on the success of that decision (Vuong, Do, & Vuong, 2016 (Paton, 2018). Similarly, Forever 21, also suffered financial losses due to rapid outlet expansions (Wharton University, 2019). This emphasize the importance of considering both the characteristics and the social ties of the individual decision-maker when understanding the effectiveness of the decisions taken (Jansen, Curseu, Vermeulen, Geurts, & Gibcus, 2013). fashion and apparel industry, who overcame the risk of higher uncertainty in rapidly changing fashion industry through effective supply chains. This elaborates that the firms need to understand the trends influencing the supply chain to make it efficient and effective.
Many supply chain decisions need to be made within a short period of time, without complete comprehension of the situation and also requires consistent decision making practices (Guerrouj & Nadia, 2019). Moreover, global recessions, globalisation, and entry of international firms cause pressure on apparel sector strategic supply chain decisions (Okpala, Mlanga, Nwajiuba, Osanebi, & Ezemoyih, 2019). The role of senior supply chain managers play in information and decision making networks are the core of decision making in key processes such as strategic planning, resource allocation, conflict resolution activities (Cross, Thomas, & Light, 2009), capacity planning, global supply chain, supply chain redesign, supply chain configuration, facility location, supply chain restructuring, locating the point of differentiation and service facility location (Narasimhan & Mahapatra, 2004) that have a direct and indirect impact on organisations.
Therefore, strategic management expertise is highly essential for supply chain managers (Sreekumar & Rajmohan, 2018)  Aligning with the anticipation all enterprises are strongly dependent on access to both material (e.g. equipment, finance) and non-material In this context, determinants and sources of social capital are related to the motivation of those "others" to make their resources publicly available Sri Lanka Journal of Advanced Social Studies www.ncas.ac.lk National Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Science (Kaasa & Parts, 2007). Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998, p. 243) explained the sum of actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the relationships possessed by an individual or social unit as "social capital" (Golgecia & Kuivalainen, 2019). Further, Colman (1988) has described social capital as the goodwill available to individuals or groups arising from the structure and content of social relations that generates enhanced information (enables access to more and different information sources and improves information quality, relevance, and timeliness), influence (actors build a cache of obligations that can be used to manage actions toward specific goals), and solidarity Research on SCT broadly focuses on the benefits that accrue in a social network because of the interactions among people (Huang, Chen, Ou, Davison, & Hua, 2015). The positive effects of social capital have been demonstrated empirically in a broad range of management topics including employment, career success, reduced turnover rates, Given that the significant investments are required to build social capital and indiscriminate promotion of social capital may lead to wasted resources (Wang, McNally, & Lenihan, 2018).

Previous research has shown that social capital at the individual level
is dependent on many socioeconomic factors, such as age (Beilmann & Realo, 2012;Kaasa & Parts, 2007), gender (Beilmann & Realo, 2012;Kaasa & Parts, 2007), marital status (Kaasa & Parts, 2007), religiosity (Kaasa & Parts, 2007), education (Beilmann & Realo, 2012;Kaasa & Parts, 2007), employment status (Kaasa & Parts, 2007) and income (Beilmann & Realo, 2012;Kaasa & Parts, 2007) indicating that many acquired as well as attributed properties of individuals may affect the quality of social capital at their disposal. Among the above factors, income and education have been identified as the most influential factors. Empirical evidence shows that higher levels of income and education coincide with a strong probability for interpersonal trust and group membership from the part of the individual (Kaasa & Parts, 2007).

Perceived effectiveness of the strategic supply chain decisions
Performance measurement can be defined as the process of quantifying Leaders are considered as influencing the decision-making process, be it through their values through their expertise or their responsibilities (Guerrouj & Nadia, 2019). Therefore, social capital could be considered as a decision aid that informs managers in their assessment of the decision situation, implying that the more social capital, the higher the decision effectiveness (Jansen, Curseu, Vermeulen, & Geurts, 2011). Strong supply chain relationships enable firms to react to changes in the market, create customer value and loyalty, which lead to improved profit margins (Cruz & Liu, 2011).

Research Methodology
Along with the similar studies associated with social capital theory and strategic decision making conducted by Akdere (2011) of the research could be classified as the blueprint, which comprises the framework of the study. Once the variables pertaining to the research question are identified and developed the conceptual framework of the study, the next step is to collect the relevant data and analysis of data to arrive at research findings (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009). This is a descriptive study consists of survey and fact-finding investigation of different kinds (Mishra & Alok, 2017). The object of descriptive research is 'to portray an accurate profile of persons, events or situations' (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009

Data Analysis and Presentation
The reliability of the scales was tested computing Cronbach's alpha values which are listed in Table 1. This demonstrates a satisfactory level of internal consistency, as it is higher than 0.7 which is the recommended level. Furthermore, the results indicate that the Likert scale items are following uni-direction. Accordingly, there is an internal consistency among the items used to operationalize corresponding variables.

Data collection and response rate
The total population of the study was 136 members, thus adopted a census sampling method. The data collection questionnaire for the study was administered electronically. The study expected to obtain filled questionnaires from 136 respondents. However, due to the time constraints and accessibility constraints due to the COVID-19 situation, constraints, and prevailing volatile political and economic situation of the country, 122 questionnaires were collected, which indicated a response rate of 89.71 percent. Data collection took approximately two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation that occurred globally. All data collected was entered into the SPSS data sheet for analysis.

Respondents' Profile
The respondents' profile has been depicted using 06 demographic variables as table 2 The respondents' total work experience, work experience related to supply chains, and their apparel sector work experiences were also measured to get a clear understanding of the respondents' competency in strategic supply chain decisions in apparel sector organisations. Furthermore, data about the respondent's engagement with their current workplace was also gathered. The summary of the figures was mentioned in Table   3 below.

Preliminary analysis
Preliminary analysis is conducted to ensure the nature of responses in relation to perceived effectiveness and individual decision maker's social capital. Furthermore, comparatively the deviation of the responses has been explained. Then the normality of the data has been estimated.
Results are provided by Table 4 below.

Effect of SC on PE
The second objective has been addressed by It is expected to analyze the effect of SC and CC on PE individually and jointly using multiple linear regression models. Results of the model summaries are provided by in   According to the individual beta values, the probability of SC is highly significant as the P-value is 0.000. Individual beta value is 1.013. This indicates that SC has a highly significant positive effect on PE. Accordingly, Ha2 is accepted.

Relationship between SC and PE
Pearson correlation analysis has been carried out and results are provided in table 7. According to the correlation analysis, the probability of the relationship between SC and PE is highly significant as the P value is 0.000. The coefficient of correlation is 0.787. This indicates that there is a highly significant positive relationship between SC and PE as the coefficient of correlation is higher than 0.7, there is a strong positive association between the variables.

Study Findings
According to the aims of the research, findings of this study concentrate on examining the relationship of individual decision maker's social capital on perceived effectiveness of strategic supply chain decision making, which can be referred to as a collective rather than an individual property (Yang, 2007). The study findings explain that the decieion makers perceive the effectiveness of the strategic supply chain decisions depends on the individual decision maker social capital. This could be mainly because the individuals prefer referencing their actions with their support networks (Iederan, Curseu, & Vermeulen, 2009

Limitations of the study
This study was carried out in a context of strategic decision makers from a selected industry. Hence, the sample consisted of less diversity from a demographic viewpoint where predominately employees were males, which is currently being addressed by apparel organizations by consciously striving to strike a balance between male-female ratios.
Further, there are a few factors affecting on perceived effectiveness of strategic decision making. The present study had only considered social capital as a factor affecting Perceived effectiveness on decision making.
The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire which by nature has limitations as the employees were able to answer only the questions that were asked. Since intention to remain in an organization is more of a personal identity related question, they would feel less likely to respond with true answers and could end up providing a more neutral answer. Besides, using other methods such as interviews and observations would have given a rich contribution for future researchers.
The current study is a cross-sectional study that provides only a snap shot view of the problem at hand, through which the researcher cannot conclude causality. Therefore, conducting a longitudinal study would have given more depth to perceived effectiveness of strategic decision making in the light of social capital.

Suggestions, recommendations and directions for further studies.
The apparel sector is affected by the constant challenge of ensuring