ICBI 2010
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/10227
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Item Economics of Small Scale Industries: A look at Programmes for the Growth and Development of Small Scale Industries in Nigeria(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Bachama, Y.N.Governments in most developing countries have recognized that small scale industries play an important role in the acceleration of growth and development in their economies. As a developing country, Nigeria is not an exception. Nigeria attempted several programmes, such as National Economic Reconstruction funds, Industrial layouts and Establishment of Nigerian bank for Commerce and Industry, etc., to improve the production and growth of this vital sector during the colonial era as well as after the independence at 1960; however some of these programmes succeeded in bringing little changes, while others are unsuccessful. The objective of this study is to assess the viability of programmes and proffer solutions that could bring about changes in this vital sector. Secondary data such as government publications and corporation’s annual reports as well as interviews conducted with officials and managers were collected and statistical techniques are used for analysis. The study reveals that small scale industries have not seriously impacted on the areas of large scale immediate employment, development of indigenous industrial sector, production of highly specialized goods and filling in cracks between large industries in the economy. It is observed that unless concrete steps are taking in identifying the problems, then the country will continue to chase shadows.Item Exhaustion and stress: an empirical study among workers in apparel industry of Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Fernando, W.R.P.K.; Selvam, M.; Bennet, E.Stress is a normal part of human life in the modern world. And everyone has to cope with it. The effect of stress is a deviation from the existing physical and psychological damage of human life. The aim of this paper is to identify the level of stress among apparel industry workers in Sri Lanka. A sample of 50 workers from 10 factories in apparel industry under Board of Investment (BOI) was randomly chosen for the purpose of this study. Once upon a time the apparel industry is the largest foreign exchange earner and a key generator of employment in the Sri Lankan Economy. However, Sri Lanka is no longer maintaining its comparative advantage in the apparel industry. The study has found that majority of Stress Related Factors are inter correlated and significantly influenced stress.Item A study on influence of advertisement in consumer brand preference (special reference to soft drink market in Manmunnai north d.s division Batticaloa)(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Vivekananthan, V.Measuring the influence of Advertisement in Consumer Brand Preference is very essential for every marketer. If advertisement does not create any positive change in consumers’ brand preference, all the resources such as money, time and efforts spent on advertisement will go in vain. Most of the marketers use Advertisement as a tool to attract substantially new customers and to retain the existing customers. This research studies about the “Influence of Advertisement in Consumer Brand Preference in the Soft Drink Market”, which is one of the most competitive markets in Batticaloa. Every Brand in this market use Advertisement as a major weapon to overcome the fierce Competition. There are numerous Advertisements of different Soft drink brands exposed in Television. But, the main thing here is, the marketer want to identify that, do all these advertisements positively influencing the consumers’ brand preference. In order to study the influence of Advertisement in Consumer Brand Preference, three main variables are considered with appropriate dimensions. They are; Information, Communication and Comprehension. The structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 200 respondents. The study found that all three variables indicate high influence of Advertisement in consumer brand preference. Even though it has high influence in overall view, the advertiser wants to consider the indicators, which have low and moderate influence in their future developments of the Advertisements to maintain its position in the market in the long-run. Eventually, this study recommends some actions for improving the influence of Advertisement in consumer brand preference.Item Empirical Investigation of Price Variability Mechanism of the Colombo All Share Price Index(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Kumar, V.; Mittal, P.There is considerable quantitative research on stock market volatility internationally, but little on SriLanka‟s emerging stock markets. Using Colombo Stock Exchange ASPI return data, this paper investigates the index price variability mechanism in different time horizons using Realized volatility as a tool. The paper also considers S&P CNX Nifty Index of National Stock Exchange, India for computing the Index returns variability during 2005-2009 and then investigates whether any analogous asymmetric characteristic is reflected in the two emerging markets. We find no significant asymmetry in the volatility proportions computed in different time horizon on either of the considered emerging markets as compared to a common finding for developed stock markets that exhibits a larger return volatility due to negative shock entering the market.Item Psychology of web design; attractive visual cues for web users in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Widanapathirana, U.J.The main goal of the study was to enhance the attractiveness of Sri Lankan web sites on the basis of Psychological aspects. It helps to bridge the gap between user and the web site through feedback given for web designers to create web sites, which cater the interests of web users in Sri Lanka through developing user satisfaction. The study was done using qualitative research methodology. The data was collected through a semi-structured interview, which was refined from a pilot study. Six participants were selected that included three males and three females, between the ages of 20 - 40. The sample was selected from the Faculty of Arts, especially from the Information Technology Center, University of Peradeniya. The current research investigated all the visual cues commonly used in web sites through psychological aspects. The results indicated 16 themes and some themes contained sub themes. The themes have revealed how to design and allocate visual cues on web sites. The first four themes covered overall aspect of web designing, those were; user friendly features, attractive features, features in visible area and methods of allocating information. The rest expressed visual cues separately, namely; the main menu, the search bar, the scroll bar, marquee tool/text, modelers and stars on web, hyperlinks, symbols, animations, images, text, colors and white space. This research can be extended further, by the analysis of gender differences in attractive visual cues or auditory cues in web sites and psychological effects on web sites for youth in Sri Lankan context.Item Competitiveness of manufacturing industries in union territory of Puducherry (India): a critical analysis(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Nambirajan, T.; Prabhu, M.In the present research work, authors aim to evaluate competitive priorities among the manufacturing industries in Union Territory of Puducherry, India. Data were randomly drawn from a sample of 52 executives of manufacturing industries in Union Territory of Puducherry. For the purpose of analysis, authors have considered eight competitive domains consisting of 43 factors. Cronbach’s Alpha is a commonly used procedure to assess the internal consistency reliability of several items or scores that are going to be used to create a summated scale score. To measure scaling performance of competitive priorities in manufacturing industries, we have selected following domains such as Quality, Cost, Delivery, Flexibility, Customer focus, Know- how, Innovation and Image. Our statistical analysis reveals that quality, delivery, cost and customer-focus are the most influencing domains on the competitive priority of manufacturing industries located in Union Territory of Puducherry.Item Measurement of performance of supply chains and their impact on the competitiveness of manufacturing industries in union territory of Pondicherry (India)(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Nambirajan, T.; Kumar, C.G.The purpose of this research work is to empirically test the measurement of supply chain performance and its impact on competitiveness of manufacturing industries located in Union Territory of Pondicherry, INDIA. In order to find the impact of Supply Chain performance on the competitiveness of the organization, authors collected primary data from a randomly selected sample of 60 manufacturing companies in Union Territory of Pondicherry. Factor analysis is used to analyze data. Initially, attributes which are related to supply chain performance are studied and statistically analyzed. Subsequently, authors have done statistical analysis using Multiple regression to examine whether supply chain performance contributed to the competitiveness of companies with respect to the following factors; (1)market share, (2)sales growth, (3)return on assets and (4) overall competitive position. From the present research work, it is found out that the supply chain performance has significant impact on the overall performance and competitiveness of manufacturing companies situated in Union Territory of PondicherryItem Paradigm of industry life cycle and industry life cycle shift contrast to flying geese model: with special reference to Sri Lankan readymade garment industry(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Senevirathne, S.M.A.G.The Flying Geese model was used to explain the industrial development in latecomer economies with industry life cycle origination, growth and decline and industry life cycle shift form country to another, especially for Asian region. This paper compare the Sri Lankan readymade garment industry life cycle with Flying Geese model to verify the validity of the model refer to Sri Lanka. Similarly this paper will explore how this Sri Lankan readymade garment industry life cycle rise, fall and its effect on the comparative advantage and international competitiveness among the nations to influence for a geographical shift of the industry. Businesses engaged in high labour intensive industries like readymade garment industry often use spatial strategies for geographical relocation of the industry to countermand the rising economical and social downturn of a given country. Readymade garment life cycle shift occurs whenever a domestic country’s internal production competition intensified due to the increased number of manufacturing firms and the industry reached to its maturity. With the growth of the industry, workers will gain their collective bargaining power and wages starts to rise, health and safety cost will rise. Increased state regulations, tax and duties will increase the industrial pressure with high budget allocations for industrial good governance and social responsibilities. Severing the condition intensified domestic and international competition demand to enforce the cutting edge industrial technology with high operational and maintenance costs. Industry will tries to base with technology by replacing the labour to face and control the mounting labour and operating costs while improving the production quality and to achieve delivery deadlines. By this phase industry’s both labour cost and technical cost were grown drastically, diminishing the country’s comparative advantage by making the country no more low cost attractive production site. With the shrinking the profit margins, the brands and manufactures tend to seek low-wage, industrially unorganised, poor legitimate, fresh and alien more lucrative geographical locations to retain and safeguard their high returns margin. Increasing tendency of the globalisation during the past decade made every country to worry about the international trade and division of labour irrespective of the development level. Sri Lanka as a developing country in South Asia and ready-made garment industry as the key decisive exports manufacturing sub sector portrait a comprehensive industry life cycle and industry life cycle shift in and out of Sri Lankan border within period of less than four decades.Item Growth and challenges of retail market in India(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Yadav, S.K.; Bargal, H.; Sharma, A.; Shukla, R.; Saxena, B.; Phalke, M.; Ghune, N.The retail sector of India has come-forth as one of the most dynamic and second fastest growing industrial economy with several players entering the market. But all of them have not yet tasted success because of the heavy initial investment that are required to break even with other companies and compete with them. India is the country having the most unorganized retail market. India’s huge middle class base and its untapped retail industry are the key attraction for global retail giants planning to enter into newer markets. This paper will includes growth of retail sector in India, strategies, strength and opportunities of retail stores, retail format in India, recent trends and opportunities and challenges. It examines consumers’ awareness and brand consciousness among people across different socio-economic group in India and witnessing of significant growth in the urban and semi-urban retail markets.Item Technologies in Indian Banks and Customers’ Perception: An Empirical Study in Maharashtra(University of Kelaniya, 2010) Mannan, S.A.The traditional function of banking is limited to acceptance of Deposits and providing the credit in the market. Today’s banking is known as Innovative banking. The coming together of information technology, communication and entertainment (ICE) has given rise to new innovations in the product design and their delivery in the banking and finance industry. Driven by new technologies, changing customer preferences, and increased competition, banks have taken to heavy investments in new distribution channels like advance automated teller machines, telephone systems, and on-line banking, one of the reasons for internet applications not to have picked up as expected so far have been the concerns about the security and lack of the legal framework related to such transactions. This hurdle has been reduced to a large extent in the recent past with framing of laws enabling financial transactions through electronic media. The most of the private and nationalized Indian banks have entered in the technology age and providing various types of electronic products and services to their customer. The objective of this paper is to analysis the implementation of technology in Indian banks and understanding the customers’ perception. This study is based on the survey and the data which is collected through the issue of questionnaire to the bank’s customer. The results show that customers are satisfied with technology oriented banks products and services. The empirical findings not only determine the different parameters also provide guidelines to bankers to focus on the parameters on which they need to improve and spread the awareness of electronic banking products and services to each and every section of the society.