National Environmental Factors for Implementing Total Quality Environmental Management in the Libyan Food Industry

Aims: Investigates national environmental factors on implementing total quality environmental management (TQEM) in the Libyan food industry (LFI), in order to develop modern managerial techniques.

Study Design: A questionnaire was conducted with 62 managers and 518 employees from three companies in the LFI.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out in Libya, the fieldwork was conducted in 2013.

Methodology: Using existing measures obtained from the literature and new ones specifically developed for this research, a battery of items was derived to investigate technical capability, organizational culture, competition, government policy and human resource.

Results: The results revealed that, five national environmental factors are identified. The findings show that the social responsibility factor is a new phenomenon that has not generally been studied in Libya, and particularly not in the LFI.

Conclusion: This research contributes to the knowledge by investigating the national environmental factors for implementation of TQEM in a different context (i.e., the Arab/North African context). The findings provide a valuable basis to establish a framework model for the implementation of the TQEM in the Libyan context.