Navigating Uncertainty through Culture: How Organizational Values Shape Supply Chain Performance in Kenya’s Crop Seed Sector

Supply chain performance (SCP) has mainly been studied through operational and technical dimensions, with limited attention to the cultural framework that shapes organizational behaviour and inter-firm dynamics. This study investigates how organizational culture influences four dimensions of supply chain performance: quality, response time, and productivity within the context of crop seed enterprises in Kenya. A quantitative, census-based research design was adopted, targeting 143 crop seed enterprises registered with the Kenya Plant Health and Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS). Data were collected from 116, and Factor analysis was applied to identify prevalent organizational culture types, yielding four constructs: uncertainty avoidance (UAV), power distance (PDI), collectivism (COL) and long-term orientation (LTO). Structural equation modelling (SEM) was subsequently used to test the influence of each cultural construct on the four SCP dimensions. The findings revealed that uncertainty avoidance emerged as the most consistent positive predictor of supply chain performance. Power distance had a significant negative influence on quality, response time, and cost performance, indicating that hierarchical organizational cultures systematically undermine supply chain agility, quality governance, and cost efficiency. Long-term orientation and collectivism did not yield statistically significant effects across most dimensions, though collectivism showed a weak positive association with productivity.