Abstract

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This is an empirical research focusing on the effect of recycling strategy on the performance of publishing firms in Kenya. There are about 14 million school going children and adult learners in Kenya who use various educational publications every year, in addition to about a million newspaper and magazine readers. Kenya is also the regional publishing powerhouse in East and Central Africa with newspaper publications selling in the whole region. Likewise, text book publishers in Kenya dominate the regional market. The industry contributes about 10% of the GDP and one of the fastest growing in the manufacturing sector. Unfortunately, Kenya does not produce most of the raw materials for publishing. All paper materials used in Kenya are imported, and the costs are rising with the reliability of the sources dwindling. In addition, the publishing industry in Kenya is faced with high rate of waste and returns. The study focused on the effect of adopting recycling strategy as possible solution to the dwindling raw materials, increasing costs and high rate of returns. It used stratified random sampling approach and a descriptive research design. The study population consisted of 357 firms from which a sample of 189 firms was taken and 138 responses were obtained. The data collection instrument was pre-tested informed design and layout of the questionnaire before launching the final test. To test the hypotheses, data analysis was done and the findings and recommendations made to solve the research problem.

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