Volume 09 - 2017
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/16968
Browse
9 results
Search Results
Item The Influence of Salary and Other Benefits on Job Satisfaction Among University Library Assistants in Sri Lanka(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Punyawardena, W.Job satisfaction is one of the prime concerns of modern day employee welfare. Job satisfaction can be influenced by a variety of factors such as appreciation, communication, coworkers, fringe benefits, job conditions, nature of work, organization, personal growth, policies and procedures, promotion opportunities, recognition, security, and supervision. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of salary and other benefits on job satisfaction among University Library Assistants in Sri Lanka. A questionnaire was developed to measure seven components of job satisfaction; i.e. salary, overtime earnings, loan facilities, welfare, accommodation, foreign leave and career development; and posted among Sri Lankan University system. The study population was 280 Library Assistants attached to the libraries of 13 National Universities i.e. University of Peradeniya, University of Colombo, University of Jaffna, Eastern University, University of Sri Jayawardenepura, University of Kelaniya, University of Ruhuna, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, University of Moratuwa, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka and The University of Sri Lanka. Two hundred and eight individuals responded out of 280 Library Assistants. The results indicated major difference of satisfaction through seven parameters. Out of the seven parameters, only the salary has become a strong facet that contributes to overall job satisfaction. It was found that 125 respondents (60%) were satisfied and 68 (33%) were averagely satisfied regarding the salary. Satisfaction on overtime earning, loan facilities, welfare, accommodation, foreign leave and career development facilities of respondents were 43%, 32%, 18%, 12%, 12% and 16% respectively. Further the study reveals that the overall job satisfaction was better towards the salary and the satisfaction of library assistants was negative towards the overtime earnings, loan facilities, welfare, accommodation, foreign leave and financial access for career development of University Libraries. The finding of the study will be helpful for the university authorities and librarians for the quality development of the effective service of Library Assistants of University Libraries.Item Effectiveness of Service Delivery Systems of Local Government Authorities to Enhance the Business Growth Potentials of Regional Businesses(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Dissanayake, D.M.R.; Norsanina, A.H.The local government administrative mechanism of Sri Lanka has been set to decentralize the power to respond for the regional service demands of stakeholders including business entities. The growth potential of Sri Lanka could be noticed in both macro and micro scaled enterprises whereas regional business ventures are a critical factor in the national growth phenomenon. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has been recognized as a middle-ranged country in doing business in the global ranking which has referred the existence of set of institutions, policies and factor as the determinants of productivity (The Global Competitiveness Index 2014–2015). Therefore, the local government authorities which include divisional secretariat offices, municipal councils and even other institutions related to provincial councils are strategically important mechanisms to assist regional investors to enhance their business productivity and growth potentials. Accordingly, this concept paper reveals how the service quality-related improvements could enhance the productivity of local authorities as an alternative mechanism to motivate regional investors to broaden business growth opportunities. Accordingly, this paper has followed theoretical models and explanations to conceptualize the integrated content to explain how the level of service quality excellence in the service delivery systems of local government authorities could influence perceived service quality referred to respective business clients/investors. It has proposed the research propositions for the future studies by specially refereeing how the gaps exists amongst business clients or investors towards service quality mechanisms of local government authorities that could influence their perceived service satisfaction to penetrate business growth potentials. Further, it has reviewed the moderating mechanisms that influence the perceived service quality amongst business clients/investors whom served by local government authorities. Finally, paper postulates the strategic directions and policy-related inputs to enhance the strategic service delivery systems for the local government authorities in Sri Lanka aiming to assist regional business developments and growth potentials.Item Duty Towards Environmental Protection: Companies’ Role Under the Companies Act No 07 Of 2007(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Wijerathna, Y.P.; Edirisinghe, A.A.The Brundtland Commission's report defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In this context, it is problematic whether companies conduct their corporate activities in line with doctrine of sustainable development. The proposed study expects to find out whether the Companies Act No 07 of 2007 imposes any duty towards environmental protection on Sri Lankan Companies. The study will evaluate the scope and the extent of these duties (if there are any) and whether the statutory duties imposed are adequate to protect environment. Overall approach to this study is qualitative. Further, relevant statutory provisions are analysed using the critical analysis method and the comparative analysis method. Critical analysis method was employed to analyze the relevant statutory provisions and the comparative analysis method is employed to examine similarities and differences between the Companies Acts of Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom. Qualitative data for the research was gathered through primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources include the relevant statutes i.e. Companies Act No. 7 of 2007 of Sri Lanka and the Companies Act of 2006 of the United Kingdom and case law and the secondary sources include books with critical analysis, journals, theses and electronic resources. The basic limitation of this method is that it does not satisfactorily focus on the actual implementation of the existing legal framework. It is submitted that Companies Act No 07 of 2007 does not expressly impose a duty on Sri Lankan companies towards environmental protection. Hence the existing statutory provisions are inadequate and the Companies Act should be amended to include express provisions to guarantee environmental protection.Item Environmental Conservation Through Yoga Practice and Its Relevance to Contemporary Society– A Study(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Sachithanantha, P.; Thavapraba, S.In the 21st century, environmental conservation is being discussed in various platform considering the endanger of environmental pollution and hazards to the human community and other beings. Environmental impact is increasing by natural disaster as well as human activities in the contemporary society. Every religion in the society has very much environmental concerns and ecofriendly philosophy in their doctrine through describing cosmology, creation theories, interconnectedness of the gods and the nature, creatures and human. Moreover, yoga has eight ethical principles to stimulate human activities and safeguard the environment. By this means religions and yoga preserve the natural environment. Humankind is spiritual, their negligence, failure of following the religious faith rightly and busy with their day to day activities also triggers them to exploit and pollute the natural environment. The yoga is one of the ancient religious wisdom. now practicing yoga has been becoming viable means to console human mind, physical fitness and happy life in the busy society. Protecting environment, in the sense of yoga, has not been communicated to the present world by the researchers even many research carried out regarding the environmental conservation in various dimensions. Therefore, this research aims at identifying the yoga practice and demonstrating the yogic perspective of the environmental conservation and recommending the basic principle of yoga to stimulate and to simply observe the yoga in their life. Thus yoga practices will lead the individual for the attitude and behavioral change and control the adverse effect of human activities on environment. This research hypothetically analyzed data related to the literature on yoga sutra, textbooks, journals, research articles on environmental issues, and reached the conclusion that practicing yoga comparatively would be a useful mean to minimize the environmental hazards due to the human activities and optimizing the environmental conservation through changing the individual mind set.Item Community Symbols in State Institutions: Presence and Implications(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Ashraf, M.A.This paper investigates the presence of community symbols in the state institutions in India. It introduces the idea of symbolic interaction in these state institutions and the exclusionary practice through those symbols, on the grounds of community identities such as religion, caste and ethnicity, is a major focus of this study. Drawing correlations with the ideas of many sociologists and anthropologists like Althusser, Foucault, Emile Durkheim and Mary Douglas who have elaborated the affiliation of identity and symbols and also the social importance of community symbols for unity and seclusion among society from critical sociological perspective. It has been observed that, there is strong nexus of government and the dominant community in the state institutions, and the interdependency of their existence, as the political creates the space through social and religious instruments which communicate through the symbols and on the other hand social gets the power from political, for sustenance and growth. It is also found that social issue of ‘exclusion’ makes the power relation visible in the democratic-secular state institutions and the tool of exclusion is based on community symbols. So the discussion is about the duality of ideology and the practice in state institutions resultant, how it is visible form of discrimination and exclusion.Item Virtual Medical Education; Yet to Achieve the Expertise(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Bala, M.This paper explores the different dimensions of newly introduced ‘technology based education in medical field’, known as “Virtual medical education In order to look at the specification of the project ‘National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)’ by Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) Government of India, seven Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to create technology enhance learning atmosphere in country and to provide mass education through distance learning mode and their plan to enter into medical education through virtual medium. While connecting the idea with the concept of hegemony and power relations, it explores the dominant form of knowledge in medicine and public health and the nature of technology which also celebrate the dominance over other forms of medicine by virtual medical education system. It also explores the philosophical understanding of knowledge system and the post-phenomenological underpinning which explores the multiple realities and their impact in the context of contemporary Indian medical education systems. . It is not only about the plurality of medical knowledge systems in India rather how the crises of developing countries lead to find out the remedies by adopting the western model of development to cater their local problems and virtual education is seen in the form of technological solution to the Indian mass education problems.Item The Role of Organizational Creativity Towards Innovations: A Conceptual Review on Services Sector Research Directions(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Dissanayake, D.M.R.; Wastantha, H.L.N.; Jinadasa, M.P.K.The notions of creativity and implementation are two identical activities of innovation process, and it could find different antecedents or determined indicators for an organization to spark the creativity. Both earlier researches and recently found empirical efforts have equally treated creativity and implementation as highlights of competitive edge for an organization. This study has followed a deductive approach to review different thoughts and key components of early studies to present how creativity and innovation have been examined. Accordingly, contribution to knowledge has been proposed via a critical review on literature. According to the key notions found in the study, some factors have been identified as key determinants for creativity concept including organizational climate and culture. Creativity is something done by creative people, and researchers found in aged-decades seemed guiding their works in par with this notion focusing predominantly on individual differences. Most of studies have aligned to the postulations of “creative” by extending its connection addressing how they are different from individual subjectivities, how it has centered to gain y competitiveness, connections of creativity towards environment, role of personality traits, and works styles of creative people. In brief, traditional approaches emphasized the importance of helping people to become more creative in their work environment and it ignored the role of the social environment in creativity and innovation which is intensively ponded in contemporarily researches. Alongside, contemporary approach assumes all humans with general abilities are able to present at least creative work in some domain provided social environment and related factors are laid as complementary integration to the system or procedures that push individual dynamics on creative behavior. This paper reviews those concepts and provides a guide to services sector organizations referring the practice –related directions to initiative service innovations. Further, paper highlights and concludes avenues to extend future studies towards service innovations by highlighting Sri Lanka as specific context.Item Factors Influence on Knowledge of Aids/HIV Among First Year Students of Eastern University, Sri Lanka(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2017) Karthijekan, K.Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has a great impact on society, both as an illness and as a source of discrimination. Numerous social and behavioral factors are involved in the spread of HIV/AIDS such as prostitution, broken homes, sexual disharmony, easy money, emotional immaturity, urbanization and industrialization, changing behavioral patterns, social stigma and alcoholism. Most of the infected people are not aware about their HIV status. Social stigma and discrimination towards HIV infected people adversely affect voluntary testing for HIV. Lack of information about the causes and risk factors of AIDS can place a large number of young people at the risk of acquiring Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection (HIV). Therefore, knowledge regarding AIDS is an essential precursor of sexual risk reduction. The aim of the study was to assess the influence of socio demographic and educational related factors in the knowledge of HIV/AIDS among first year students of the Eastern University, Sri Lanka. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out among 300 first year students of the Eastern University. Stratified random sampling method was used to select sample. Self- administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Among the 300 participants, 36.3 % were male and 63.7 % were female. 46.7 % of them were Tamil, 30 %, 20.7% and 2.7% were Sinhalese, Muslims and Burgers respectively. The mean knowledge score regarding HIV/AIDS among first year students of the Eastern University was 43.7%. Female students had higher knowledge than male students. Health care students had higher knowledge than other faculties’ students. All male and female participants were aware that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease. There was a significant association between mean knowledge scores of HIV/AIDS and gender, ethnicity, faculty, stream of A/L study, and source of information obtained (p <0.05). The knowledge regarding AIDS was average among majority of first year students of the Eastern University. Knowledge about transmission methods, signs and symptoms and preventive measures of AIDS was good among all student’s exception in some response. Volume 09 - Issue 01Collection