Commerce and Management
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Item Improving community vitality: spiritually informed entrepreneurial actions(Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, 2024) Dissanayake, S.; Pavlovich, K.; Kovács, G.Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to depict how entrepreneurs improve community vitality in the economic, social and environmental dimensions. The paper joins the conversation of business spirituality as the study participants were Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs from the emerging venture context (i.e. from enterprises which are less than 1–10 years old). The aim of the paper is to introduce spiritually informed entrepreneurial actions, thus contributing to a better understanding of entrepreneurial impact on communities. Design/methodology/approach The paper involves a qualitative, interpretivist research design. Data was collected by conducting 28 semi-structured interviews with 18 Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs. Research participants were selected from diverse business sectors. The research applied inductive thematic analysis for structuring and interpreting data. Findings For Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs, improving community vitality is an essential altruistic goal of their business agenda. During the operations of their ventures, this altruistic goal is translated into altruistic actions that improve the economic, social and environmental vitalities of communities. Research findings highlight that in the case of Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs, altruistic actions are informed by compassion, which is a fundamental value in the Buddhist religion. Drawing on the findings, an integrated model of community vitality, which describes the role of compassion and the mechanisms of entrepreneurial actions in a Buddhist setting was developed inductively. Originality/value Studying entrepreneurial actions to focus on the motivations behind improving community vitality is a new research topic. The paper provides valuable knowledge on business spirituality regarding the compassionate motivations of Buddhist entrepreneurs. The integrated model of community vitality, which describes the mechanisms of entrepreneurial actions to improve community vitality in a Buddhist setting could be an essential compass not only to entrepreneurs but also research scholars in the field of business spirituality.Item Consumer Perception and Behavioral Patterns onNutritional Food Consumption of Urban and Suburban Segments of Sri Lanka: A Decisional Analysis to Case –Related Implications(International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 2017) Liyanage, P.W.; Dissanayake, D.M.R.There are structural dynamics taking place within the population structure of Sri Lanka with noted trends in demographic dynamics. Further, healthy life style has been largely referred in many national level policies and empirical studies as a key determinant for holistic development of the nation. The behavioral trends towards the nutritional food consumption is one of the critical contexts which is being investigated in the national level priorities. This paper also attempts to investigate the empirical insights of the urban and suburban consumers towards the wholesome food consumption practices addressing to empirical knowledge gaps found within. Accordingly, survey method was employed with a structured questionnaire as the research tool to figure out perceptions and behavioral responses of 280 respondents towards the wholesome food consumption practices. Study follows a random sampling method and descriptive statistical tools were used to analyze the primary data. Findings were discussed by highlighting the needful insights for policy development and managerial implications for the industry players. It has presented the behavioral insights of the protein consumption trends of Sri Lanka addressing to both policy level and industry-related priorities. Finally, paper concludes the future research directions referring to the propositions of consumer behavioral responses pertaining to nutrition industry of Sri Lanka.Item Brand Differentiation in Industrial Sector Context: Empirical Review and Case Evidences in Sri Lanka(International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 2017) Munasinghe, A.; Dissanayake, D.M.R.This paper reviews theories, models and empirical insights on brand differentiations alongside briefing to industry practices in Sri Lanka. Prior researches have provided a ground reviewing brand differentiation strategies, but this paper attempts to highlight the practice notions in Sri Lankan market in line with the empirical evidences. Literature review was the main strategy followed in building empirical explanations whilst industry-related cases were brought to the paper. Authors conducted some interview with industrial sector corporate managers and professionals to reveal the industry-related practices executed on brand differentiation in Sri Lanka. Besides the empirical evidences, it referred some research reports carried out by companies to provide industry-related research insights to rationalize some arguments. Managers in industrial and consumer durable sector organizations could associate the insights of this paper in patterning respective competitive strategies and brand building strategies to earn effective brand-related behaviors. Authors suggest future research propositions referring industry-related cases in the scope of brand differentiation.Item The Tourism-Led Development Strategy in Sri Lanka.(Journal of Business and Technology, 2017) Fernando, Sriyantha.Sri Lanka has an ability to become one of the best tourism countries (TCs) in Asia. However, it missed opportunities on a number of occasions due to inappropriate economic policies, continuous political violence and wars. Since 1983 the Sri Lankan tourism sector was seriously affected by the nearly three decades of separatist war which ended in May 2009. Immediately after the end of war tourism in Sri Lanka bounced back and it now has become the engine of economic growth in post war Sri Lanka. In this paper, a historical analysis has been undertaken to demonstrate how Sri Lanka miss matched their development strategies in terms of tourism, although the country had potential to attract record number of tourists. The post-war tourism boom has given Sri Lankans and the Sri Lankan tourism sector new hopes and optimism. This paper demonstrates that the Sri Lankan tourism sector has potential and opportunities to play a vital role in the post-war inclusive development strategy in terms of generating much needed foreign exchange, poverty alleviation via employment generation, accelerating economic growth and uplifting living standards of all Sri Lankans.Item Relationship between Perceived Brand Equity and Purchase Intention of Life Insurance Brands in Sri Lanka: A Concept Paper(2016) Gunawardane, N.; Munasinghe, A.; Dissanayake, D.M.R.Sri Lanka is referred as a service driven economy as it denotes in the structural dynamics noticed in the economy. Accorodgly, insurance business has also been evolving with different structural and market dynamics that influence wider impact to the economy. Moreover, a subset of insurance market, life insurance business in Sri Lanka, exhibits more competitive moves as per the marketing and consumer behavioral perspectives. Industry practices of the life insurance sector highlight many brand building initiatives aiming at stimulating favorable responses of consumers to sign competitive edges. Meanwhile, the notion of brand equity and purchase intention have been referred in many empirical studies to examine the relationship between brand related marketing stimulus and behavioral responses of consumers towards them. Alongside, this study intends to review those concepts and suggest research propositions with reference to the context of life insurance business of Sri Lanka. We followed a deductive approach, and comprehensive literature review on empirical studies was carried out as the main research tool to build arguments supporting to suggested propositions. Paper concluded by denoting directions for the future studies in line with the notions of brand equity and brand related behaviors addressing to empirical research gaps in Sri Lanka.Item Impact of Subjective Well-Being on Success of Technological Knowledge Creation among Independent Inventors in Developing Countries: A First Look at Sri Lanka(2011) Wickramasinghe, C.N.; Ahmad, N.; Rashid, S.; Emby, Z.Technological innovations have become one of the key determinants of the success of knowledge economy. So far, technological development in knowledge economies has been mainly measured based on organizational and explicit objective outcome of knowledge creation capacity of a nation or a region. In the Western knowledge economies, role of the independent inventors has been ignored, discouraged, and organizational innovations have been recognized as driving force in new knowledge creation. However, the continuous involvement of independent inventors in technological inventions in unfavorable conditions is a phenomenon that cannot be explained by existing objective measures. Recently, subjective well-being has emerged as a key aspect of human capital that positively influences the developing nations. However, there were hardly any published studies that examined the possible relationship between subjective well-being and the success of inventors in the developing countries. This paper presents the first look at this relationship among the independent inventors in Sri Lanka: a lower middle-income country in South Asia. The study found that independent inventors in Sri Lanka are not objectively successful, but they are subjectively successful. They feel happy about what they have achieved as inventors, satisfy with what they are planning to do and supposing to achieve in the future. Independent inventors’ subjective success depends on their satisfying assessment of existing objective outcomes, optimism on what they are going do, and what they are hoping to gain in the future. Findings suggest that subjective success or well-being of independent inventors might lead them to be continuously engaged in inventive activities under the unfavorable environments for independent inventing.Item Multidimensionality of urban poverty: an inquiry into the crucial factors affecting well-being of the urban poor in Sri Lanka(International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, United Kingdom, 2015) Semasinghe, W.M.Although, identification of the nature of poverty in a specific setting is crucial for poverty analysis and designing targeted poverty reducing programs, there is no consensus among researchers, policymakers etc. on the dimensions of poverty, due to the multidimensionality and the universality of the phenomena. Even the criteria for selecting dimensions used in the literature remain controversial. Although, the poverty has been greatly discussed recently in Sri Lanka as in many other developing countries, most of the analysts have focused mainly on the identification of incidence and trends of poverty based on uni-dimensional approach. It is hard to find the methodical attempts which are made to identify the border aspects of well-being and poverty of mankind. The main objective of this paper is to identify the dimensions of urban poverty in the light of conventional methodologies and historical knowledge. Qizilbash’s ‘core poor’ framework was applied in this analysis. Findings revealed that shelter, clean drinking water, children’s education, health service, environmental pollution, addiction to drugs/ alcoholism, uncertainty about the future, sanitation, domestic violence and stability of livelihood are the crucial factors of well-being of urban poor.Item The Role of the Internet in Australian Small Firms Exporting to Sri Lanka: An Innovative Export Model(2011) Amarasena, A.The purpose of this exploratory research paper is to offer an understanding on the role of the Internet in the context of small firms exporting from an advanced to emerging market. The countries chosen in this context are Australia and Sri Lanka. The research study involves face to face interviews with the owner/managers of Australian exporting firms. It reveals that the exporters? knowledge on the customer base in Sri Lanka and their advantage of being connected to various networks both in Australia and Sri Lanka make their exporting business high performing. The owner/managers who gained a number of years of international business experience from working as managers of firms in the export market would add further advantage to exporting firms. The paper suggests that the capability of owner/managers to identify the right blend of Internet technology while managing human factors in the export process is critical to their export success.Item An Integrative Sales Growth Model for Small Manufacturing Enterprises in Sri Lanka: Path Analysis Approach(2011) Nishantha, B.enterprises are increasingly playing an important role in Sri Lanka. However, little is known about the determinants of small enterprise growth in this context. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the factors in different dimensions influencing small enterprise growth in Sri Lanka. Based on an analysis of data from 97 owner-managers of small manufacturing enterprises located in Colombo district, the researcher developed an integrative sales growth model that suggests how human capital, social capital, access to external resources and internal capabilities & business structure directly and/ or indirectly influence the sales growth of small enterprises. Results of path analysis suggested that three human capital variables namely: training with work experience in same field, technical and professional education and education with experience in government sector indirectly affect small enterprises sales growth through other intermediate variables. Three social capital variables namely: organizational network with network maintenance and resources sharing with SEs and supportive network with financial institutes have significant direct positive effect on sales growth. The direct and indirect effects of access to external resources variables on sales growth are not so strong. Only one variable in internal capabilities & business structure dimension, namely innovation and imitation has positive direct effects on sales growth.Item Determinants of Cross-Company Differences in Capital Structures in Sri Lankan Hotel Industry: An Opinion Survey(2011) Fernando, C.S.P.; Rajini, P.A.D.; Reha, R.The capital structure is the composition of a company?s sources of funds, which is determined by the proportion of the debt-equity mix. Determination of capital structure of a firm is very important because it affects cost of capital. Firm?s capital structure is one of the most widely researched topics in corporate finance world. However, in the Sri Lankan context, only a few researches have been carried out on capital structure in service industry and hardly any in the hotel industry. Therefore, a need has been identified to find out the factors that determine capital structure of hotel industry. Hence, this research examines the effect of different company specific variables including liquidity, information asymmetry, agency cost, dividends, profitability, business risk, growth rate and bankruptcy costs on the capital structure of the Sri Lankan hotels. In achieving the aim of this research, an empirical investigation was conducted using survey questionnaires. In order to identify the overall explanatory power of variables, a multiple regression analysis was carried out and a simple linear regression was conducted to ascertain individual contributions of the determinants in explaining cross firm capital structure differences. The results revealed that the business risk variable is the only determinant that has a significant influence on proportion of debt in the capital structure.