Commerce and Financial Management

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Adopting e-hailing Application Among Malaysian Millennials
(The 7th International Conference on Cyber and IT Service Management (CITSM), Jakarta Convention Center – Jakarta, 2019) Razi, M.J.M.; Tamrin, M.I.M.; Nor, R.M.
e-hailing apps dominate the public taxi transport sector all over the globe. Different researchers study this disruptive business model from a different perspective. The current researchers look at this phenomenon from the technology acceptance perspective. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) make the base for the study. The variables Performance Expectancy (PE) and the Effort Expectancy (EE) and another two variables Trust, and Enjoyment are also considered in this study. Data were collected from 352 university students who are millennials. Out of the four hypotheses proposed, Effort Expectancy (H2), Trust (H3), and Enjoyment (H4) positively influence Intention. The hypothesis related to PE (H1) was not supported. Implications are discussed.
Analysis of Social Distancing Behaviour during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka
(10th ICME at University of Ruhuna,, 2021) Herath, H.M.T.S.; Shamil, Mohamed M.; Ariff, S.S.
Drawing on the Protection-Motivation Theory (PMT), this study aims to analyze the influence of perceived health risk on social distancing behaviour and the mediating role of attitude towards social distancing among the residents of Colombo and Gampaha districts of the western province of Sri Lanka. A questionnaire was designed and distributed using online means to collect data. A total of 312 complete responses were received and used for analysis. Our findings show that there is a significant and positive relationship between perceived health risk and social distancing behaviour, and attitude towards social distancing mediates the relationship between perceived health risk and social distancing behaviour. Moreover, our findings also reveal that females are more likely to demonstrate social distancing behaviour than males. Also, females are likely to show a strong relationship between perceived health risk and social distancing behaviour compared to males. A shortfall in response rate is a limitation of the study. This study is among the first few studies to emerge from Sri Lanka to examine the predictors of social distancing behaviour amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings of this study have several implications for public health communication in Sri Lanka.
Are Gender and Immigration a Double Disadvantage? Exploring the Experiences of Sri Lankan Female Immigrant Entrepreneurs in London, United Kingdom
(Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 2022) Surangi, H.A.K.N.S.
Ethnic minority female entrepreneurs play a vital role in developed countries, yet they rarely receive recognition. The research explores the experiences of Sri Lankan female immigrant entrepreneurs and their challenges in London, the United Kingdom. The research followed the path of a narrative approach of qualitative methodology, which is an efficient method to explore people's experiences through a sociologically based theory on “othering” and “belonging.” Seven participants were purposively approached and asked to narrate their stories and share their experiences. The research findings suggest that female immigrant entrepreneurs face many hardships in their businesses. Institutional and consumer racism and a lack of networking are the external barriers they had to face. The internal challenges include the liability of newness and the host country's cultural values. Sri Lankan female entrepreneurs’ identities are labeled as an “othered” social group in the UK business community context, treated as outsiders, and made to face structural exclusion. However, gender is not the real villain; ethnicity is the actual undercover devil at business. This research offers a unique insight into female and immigrant entrepreneurship, thereby casting light on an aspect of Sri Lankan female entrepreneurs living in the United Kingdom, which is currently under research.
Attractiveness of venture idea amongst expert entrepreneurs: a conjoint analysis
(Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, 2010) Semasinghe, D.M.
Venture ideas are at the heart of entrepreneurship (Davidsson, 2004). However, we are yet to learn what factors drive entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the attractiveness of venture ideas, and what the relative importance of these factors are for their decision to pursue an idea. The expected financial gain is one factor that will obviously influence the perceived attractiveness of a venture idea (Shepherd & DeTienne, 2005). In addition, the degree of novelty of venture ideas along one or more dimensions such as new products/services, new method of production, enter into new markets/customer and new method of promotion may affect their attractiveness (Schumpeter, 1934). Further, according to the notion of an individual-opportunity nexus venture ideas are closely associated with certain individual characteristics (relatedness). Shane (2000) empirically identified that individual’s prior knowledge is closely associated with the recognition of venture ideas. Sarasvathy’s (2001; 2008) Effectuation theory proposes a high degree of relatedness between venture ideas and the resource position of the individual. This study examines how entrepreneurs weigh considerations of different forms of novelty and relatedness as well as potential financial gain in assessing the attractiveness of venture ideas.
Attractiveness of Venture Idea amongst Expert Entrepreneurs: A Conjoint Analysis (Interactive Paper)
(2010) Semasinghe, D.M.
Venture ideas are at the heart of entrepreneurship (Davidsson, 2004). However, we are yet to learn what factors drive entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the attractiveness of venture ideas, and what the relative importance of these factors are for their decision to pursue an idea. The expected financial gain is one factor that will obviously influence the perceived attractiveness of a venture idea (Shepherd & DeTienne, 2005). In addition, the degree of novelty of venture ideas along one or more dimensions such as new products/services, new method of production, enter into new markets/customer and new method of promotion may affect their attractiveness (Schumpeter, 1934). Further, according to the notion of an individual-opportunity nexus venture ideas are closely associated with certain individual characteristics (relatedness). Shane (2000) empirically identified that individual’s prior knowledge is closely associated with the recognition of venture ideas. Sarasvathy’s (2001; 2008) Effectuation theory proposes a high degree of relatedness between venture ideas and the resource position of the individual. This study examines how entrepreneurs weigh considerations of different forms of novelty and relatedness as well as potential financial gain in assessing the attractiveness of venture ideas.
Attractiveness of venture ideas: a conjoint study
(Swinburne University of Technology, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 2010) Semasinghe, D.M.; Davidsson, P.; Steffens, P.R.
Every venture starts with a venture idea; product/service, method of production, customer, market, or method of promotion etc. This study focused its attention on what factors drive entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the relative attractiveness of specific venture ideas, and how important different venture idea characteristics are for making such assessments. Based on several idea characteristics – four dimensions of newness, two dimensions of relatedness and potential financial gains – the study investigated how 32 expert entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka trade off among different levels and attributes associated with different idea characteristics. The study utilized a Conjoint Analysis to understand how entrepreneurs make preferences for different profiles of venture idea characteristics. Results suggest that entrepreneurs are highly attractive of introducing substantial improved products. They prefer to use a higher knowledge in implementing venture idea. Further, results show that entrepreneurs give higher importance for process newness in perceiving venture idea.
Barriers to Learning from Crisis: A Neglected Aspect of Disaster Risk Reduction in the Tourism SMEs in Sri Lanka
(2024) Adikaram, Kalutara Koralalage Nilanthi Britto; Sheresha, Surangi Hapugoda Achchi Kankanamge Nadee
The survival of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is a critical necessity due to their economic and social contributions. Organizational crises, on the other hand, pose a threat to the viability of SMEs. Thus, DRM has become increasingly important in the organizational management of SMEs. As a strategic approach to DRR in organizational context, SMEs need to practice crisis management, particularly need to learn from crises. However, the high crisis vulnerability of SMEs indicates ineffective crisis management on their part, mainly due to failure to learn from crises. Using a social constructivist approach, this phenomenological study attempts to identify the various barriers that hinder the crisis learning of SMEs. An in-depth investigation was conducted with 19 selected tourism SMEs located in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. The results revealed the existence of several crisis learning barriers classified using IPA, namely personal, organizational, and industry level barriers. Among them, the organizational level barriers brought attention to the lack of internal resource integration for crisis management in tourism SMEs. These findings could assist SMEs and stakeholders to identify the corrective measures required to eliminate such learning barriers. They may also help policymakers and supporting organizations in launching their services.
The Battle against the World of Piracy: A Case Review of ABC Entertainment
(Staff Development Unit, Faculty of Commerce & Management Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Abeywardana, N.L.E.; Jayarathne, L.C.H.; Jeewandarage, P.M.; Lasantha, S.A.R.; Dissanayake, D.M.N.S.W.; Jayarathne, B.C.P.; Hettiarachchi, H.A.H.; Anuranga, B.K.H.D.
In general, gaining of competitive advantage is the main objective of a company’s survival. In the pursuit of achieving this companies explicitly or implicitly adhere to many strategies and many external factors which beyond the company’s control affect this process. Thus is it inevitably complex and only keen companies survive? Provided that, in this review note we bring a contemporary case into discussion. ABC entertainment was one of the finest companies established in Sri Lanka and their core business was selling artistic content in different forms; ringtones, compact discs, etc. Their main revenue generator relied upon the ringtones supplied to mobile operators such as Mobitel, Dialog, Etisalat, Hutch and etc. Back then, Mobitel operated as the industry leader of telecommunication and subsequently companies entered to a price war with the emergence of companies like Airtel in 2009. All the companies faced severe reductions in revenue and found tough to operate. As means of survival and retaining competitive positions companies’ implemented strategies such as adding value added services such as internet and data. The review proceeds discussing problems raised in the revenue models of the companies providing facts in relation to telecommunication industry in Sri Lanka, management structure and etc. Finally the review suggests strategies as means of survival.
BENCHMARKING OF HALAL FOOD PRODUCTS USING SIMILARITY MEASURES - A CONCEPTUAL RETRIEVAL MODEL
(Journal of Information Systems and Digital Technologies, 2019) Tamrin, M.I.M.; Turaev, S.; Azemin, M.Z.C.; Razi, M.J.M.; Maifiah, M.H.M.
Muslims are concerned with the Halal status of food products sold in the supermarkets. Many products that are imported from overseas are not certified by JAKIM. In this paper, we proposed a conceptual model for benchmarking food products against certified Halal products. Our motivation is to provide similarity measurement between certified and non-certified food products based on their ingredients. This model comprises three main phases: ingredient acquisition, ingredient transformation and similarity measures calculation. In the first phase, web crawlers are employed to retrieve product information from JAKIM online database and supermarket web pages. In the second phase, an index structure will be constructed to allow faster ingredient retrieval which will be used for similarity calculation. In the last phase, Euclidian distance, cosine similarity measure and Jaccard correlation coefficient will be used to measure the similarities between two products. Our proposed model is to complement but not to replace the existing JAKIM procedure to verify food products by empowering Muslim consumers with informed decision making.
Building a Conceptual Model for Adopting Green Supply Chain Practices
(2015) Jayarathna, B.C.P.
Green supply chain management is becoming more popular in South East Asian region and it is a way to display the genuine commitment to sustainability of any organization and the environment in this region. Most of the developed and developing countries tend to adopt green supply chain practices as a solution for serious environmental problems. Therefore this study supports for the potential organizations to adopt green supply chain practices and strengthen the extant body of knowledge on green supply chain management. This paper presents a conceptual model for identifying the key drivers that influence to adopt green supply chain practices based on the existing literature. The proposed model addresses the key drivers as external and internal factors based on theoretical background of institutional theory and resource based view theory. It is expected that proposed model will be more contributed to enhance the adoption of green supply chain practices by manufacturers, suppliers and government.
Building a Theoretical Model of Entrepreneurial Venture Growth: An Alternative Perspective
(Sydney, Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, 2014) Dissanayake, D.M.N.S.W.; Semasinghe, D.M.
Despite the low theoretical developments in the Entrepreneurial Venture Growth literature, entrepreneurial ventures require growth to provide economic development, to create wealth and employment. However, some entrepreneurial ventures register for high growth whereas others do not. Adding to that, Azevedo, & Ortiz (2011) write, the main cause for firm growth and success can be found inside of the firm. Despite the wide ranging factors ‘inside the firm’, Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) acts as the strategy of an entrepreneur and the notion of Core Competencies (CC) covers intrinsic resources and capabilities of the entrepreneurial venture. Given these two antecedents of entrepreneurial venture growth, we intend to develop a comprehensive theoretical model of Entrepreneurial Venture Growth. Pertaining main propositions and sub-propositions were developed based on the constructs identified. Entrepreneurial Orientation viewed in a five dimensional framework and Core Competencies was defined rationally. Moderators of entrepreneurial venture growth and core constructs were conceptualized and rationalized and the theoretical framework developed subsequently. We argue that the associated concepts (EO and CC) can be justified as predictors of Entrepreneurial Venture Growth. Also, the application of these constructs in a different setting has important implications. We suggest more scholarly investigations are required in this regard.
Challenges Facing by Women in Accessing Credit from Microfinance Institutions in Sri Lanka
(2013) Yogendrarajah, R.; Semasinghe, D.M.
Women are key instrument in the society and their role is very important in the world because they act dual role both in the family as well as society. The microfinance has an important role in empowering women in developing countries as well as in Sri Lanka by accessing credit facilities for their income generating activities to empower the rural women. With the conflict situation in Northern part of Sri Lanka, most of the men left from that area and they were unable to withstand by political condition. In this situation, many men were killed and women had to take the responsibility of the family as leaders. The Sri Lankan government has a responsibility to rehabilitate and revitalize the situation under post war development. MFIs provide their members with financial and social intermediation services to help improve their income generating activities. The aim of this study is to examine the challenges faced by women when accessing loans for income generating activities. This concept paper focuses on a review of academic literature on Challenges when accessing loans in empowering women through micro finance in Sri Lanka. For this purpose previous studies from developed and developing countries on this regards have been examined and then found out the solutions from the literatures. Finally, the conclusion of their studies has been analyzed and then provided a comprehensive literature by seeing the experiences and usefulness of the activities about the solutions for the challenges in accessing the loan facilities for income generating activities to empower poor women. Therefore it has been strongly feel that a look into empowering women and developing them with the support of the microfinance and the monitoring and creating awareness are important to eliminate the challenges facing by them in accessing credit from Microfinance Institutions.
Contribution of Micro Credit Programme in Empowering Women: A Special Reference to Kilinochchi District in Sri Lanka
(2014) Yogendrarajah, R.; Semasinghe, D.M.
The prime objective of this study was to assess the impact of micro credit in empowering poor women before and after joining with micro credit programmes. The study was conducted at Kilinochchi District in Sri Lanka as one of the war affected areas. Both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used to obtain a reliable data. Data were derived from a questionnaire survey of a sample of 94 women clients and three focus group discussions were conducted involving 18 women while in-depth interviews were carried out with another 12. The paired sample statistics was used to find out the significant differences between before and after joining the micro credit programme. The study indicated that the income levels of the majority of the clients have increased after the delivery of micro credit. The results have also been shown in the enhancement of the women’s self-confidence with respect to the capability to work on their own and improve their lives. The study concluded that the microfinance activities are necessary for the overall empowerment except access of micro credit.
COVID‑19 Effects on Public Finance and SDG Priorities in Developing Countries: Comparative Evidence from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
(The European Journal of Development Research, 2022) Colombage, S.R.N.; Barua, S.; Nanayakkara, M.; Colombage, Udari N.
The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented global health crisis, rapidly transferred into a global economic and social crisis. The pandemic has threatened the world’s commitment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 as governments in developing countries have shifted their priorities from attaining SDGs, to providing urgent financial needs to save lives and prevent recession in hopes for a rapid economic recovery. The rerouting of public funding priorities has undermined the progress and achievement of SDGs. We employed a mixed-method and carried out a comparative study using pre- and post-public financial data of two developing countries in South Asia; Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A threefold analysis was conducted to investigate the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in two countries, the impact of the pandemic on external and internal public finance and the effect of the pandemic in shifting the policy priorities from SDGs to economic survival. This study found that both countries are highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic and are suffering from the lack of financing from external sources through the private sector as well as an increasing foreign debt. There is mounting pressure on the fiscal balance in both countries.
A critical analysis of the networking experiences of female entrepreneurs: a study based on the small business tourism sector in Sri Lanka
(Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2022) Surangi, H.
This study expands on current knowledge through how female entrepreneurs form and develop their networks in the Sri Lankan context. It adopts social construction- ism philosophy and narrative design to explore the female entrepreneurs’ networking behaviour. Thematic analysis is used to understand the life stories of fourteen women entrepreneurs in the tourism sector. Findings suggest that female entrepreneurs are likely to rely on more informal recruitment methods and informal training practices. They have strong relationships with local communities, but they focus on customers beyond the locals. Seasonality within tourism has emphasised tourism literature due to its disruptive effect on economic transactions. However, less of the literature has examined the social effects of seasonality, which is where this study can contribute by exploring how gender roles related to social and domestic responsibilities are renegoti- ated during the low and high seasons when tourism entrepreneurs re-adjust to new time-demand realities. Nevertheless, the narrative research design is not widely used in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this article adds to the entrepreneurial networking knowledge by analysing stories about female entrepreneurs’ experiences and social constructionist perspectives.
Demand, volatility and post-war tourism in Sri Lanka
(München, Germany, 2016) Fernando, Sriyantha.
Historically Sri Lanka has always been a tourist destination for centuries because of its strategic location and uniqueness. Although Sri Lankan tourism sector has been growing since 1967, International tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have experienced notable fluctuations during the nearly three decades of civil war, particularly between 1983 and 2009. Sri Lankan tourism has managed to recover quickly since the end of war in 2009. After recognising the role of post-war tourism, the Sri Lankan government has launched the Tourism Development Strategies for the period 2011-2016. Firstly, The paper carried out systematic statistical analysis for Sri Lankan tourism focussing in particular on the civil war and associated political violence. Secondly, the paper empirically explored whether the targets set in the TDS by the Sri Lankan government are achievable or realistic by using a simple econometric model. Furthermore, post-war tourism development and the tourism boom are being evaluated within the context of the current political and economic situation. The empirical results of the first study demonstrating that the Sri Lankan tourism industry is very sensitive to political violence, exchange rate changes, and seasonal variations. The analysis suggests that significant increases in political violence lowered tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka and created a substantial amount of volatility in tourism demand. The results of the second study indicate that the Sri Lankan tourism industry was in a favorable position to achieve the targets until 2014 but missing the targets in 2015 and it is a challenge to achieve of 2.5 million tourism arrivals by 2016. A number of policy inferences can be drawn from this study. Given the limited resources available to the Sri Lankan government and the competing claims on these resources, development of strategies for and active promotion of public- private partnerships aimed at creating new tourism related infrastructure (hotel resorts, cruise line facilities, road transport upgrades, etc.) are recommended. There is should be a consideration for promoting the country as a price competitive and safe tourism destination. Finally, the country has to maintain political stability and work towards reconciliation process with improved governance and maintaining rules of law in order for the development strategy to be fully realized.
Determinants of Intrapreneurial Behaviour of Employees: A Review of Recent Literature
(10th ICME at University of Ruhuna, 2021) Dilroshan, C.; Herath, H.M.T.S.; Madurapperuma, W.
Intrapreneurial behaviour (IB) of employees is essential to tackle challenges 1and stimulate growth and well-being of organizations. Research on IB remain isolated and scarce preventing scholars from developing a more detailed understanding of the same. Thus, a better understanding of what drives IB and more recent analysis on the same are needed. A review of recent literature into determinants of IB is a timely requirement. The main purpose of this review is to understand the current state of determinants of employee IB in organizations. Journal articles published in English language from January 2010 to February 2021 in reputed on-line data bases of Ebsco, Emerald and in search engines of Google scholar, and Google research gate were set as conditions for selecting articles for this review. By conducting online searches using two search terms, 42 sample articles published online from 27 international journals were selected and reviewed under descriptive, thematic, methodological, and terminological review and analyzed for mediating and moderating factors. 59 intrapreneurial determinants were identified and categorized under three main factors. The analysis of findings reveals that determinants of IB are an emerging field of study. Large diversity was identified in the terminology used to indicate intrapreneurial behaviour. Perspectives, theories, and phenomenon used in the articles were also analyzed for their in-depth meanings and a synthesized view is presented highlighting the importance of reciprocal relationships. Finally, this review describes theoretical and practical implications and suggests areas for future research.
Does compliance to Green Bond Principles matter? Global Evidence
(AABFJ, 2022) Nanayakkara, Madurika; Colombage, Sisira
We examine the effect of degree of compliance with the Green Bond Principles (GBP) on investor demand for such bonds, using cross-sectional data for all countries in the Green Bond market over the period 2007-2019. We find a significantly positive effect of higher compliance with the GBPs on investor demand, as measured by Bid-Ask-Spread and Yield-spread, after controlling for common bond-specific and macroeconomic variables. However, our results showed no evidence that macroeconomic factors influenced Green Bond investments. Moreover, we also find a positive effect on investor demand when a bond is issued by a government agency, even if the degree of compliance is low.
Does the Innate Culture make all Failures to Entrepreneurs? An Existing Context Specific Problem
(International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2014) Dissanayake, D.M.N.S.W.; Semasinghe, D.M.
Complementing Ireland et al., (2003) inference of „regardless of the size of the entrepreneurial venture, strategic entrepreneurial aspects (advantage seeking and opportunity seeking behaviors) are important‟, we set out to assess whether less entrepreneurial behavior in Sri Lanka has an impact from the innate culture? This working study interviewed 127 entrepreneurs in two districts in Sri Lanka and Geert Hofstede‟s six dimensional cultures were assessed. We came to know that selected entrepreneurs of two districts hold the characteristics of being collective, high power distant, feminine, low uncertainty avoidance, long term oriented and Indulgent. We concluded that, innate culture hinders entrepreneurship in relation to power distance. Though a large number of entrepreneurial ventures started as solo entrepreneurial ventures in Sri Lanka, the distance of power between the owner and the subordinates may act as a restraining factor in the process of expansion. We generalized our findings and different implications were made and finally some research directions were proposed. Importantly, we propose that, despite the relationship of cultural inheritance and entrepreneurship, strategic entrepreneurial aspects are of paramount importance to secure entrepreneurship in a country. Simply put, it provides a clear basis for sustainable entrepreneurship and it clearly differentiates a mere business venture.
e-Hailing from Service Quality Perspective: A Malaysian Based Study
(2021 International Conference on Software Engineering & Computer Systems and 4th International Conference on Computational Science and Information Management (ICSECS-ICOCSIM), 2021) Razi, M. J. Mohamed; Tamrin, M. I. M.; Nor, R. M.
On-demand vehicle acquisition with a driver on internet-based platform (e-hailing) has become one of the standard transport modes nowadays. Accordingly, different stakeholders have shown high interest in this concept, including the research community; thus, several types of research have been carried out from different perspectives. The current researchers investigate this phenomenon from Service Quality Perspective. Finding the antecedents of user/passenger use intention is the main objective of this study. A conceptual framework was developed mainly based on RECSA model. Affordability, Reliability, Safety, and Service were considered as the antecedents of customer intention to use. The proposed model was tested using data collected from 352 Malaysian university students. The outcome of the path analysis performed using SMART PLS (3.0) proved that all four factors considered in this study are statistically significant antecedence of user intention.