Felicitation Volume of Professor G.W. Indrani
http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12015
2024-03-28T08:41:51ZForeign Policy of the United States and US Rise to Hegemony
http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12044
Foreign Policy of the United States and US Rise to Hegemony
Rathnayake, R.M.S.S.
In today’s competitive international arena, it is widely known that the United States (US) is at the top of the
world’s hierarchy of power. The US emerged preeminent from the II World War and ever since, the country
is predominant in world’s economic, political, technological and military sectors. Though the Soviet Union
posed a substantial threat to the preponderance of the US during the Cold War, after the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, the US rose to power as the undisputed hegemon in the international order. In its relations
with other actors in the international system, the US utilizes its foreign policy to achieve its national interests
as well as secure its hegemonic ambitions. The objective of the study is to analyze the US foreign policy and
identify the causes and circumstances that led to the hegemony of the US. This study is mainly based on
secondary data such as books, articles, newspapers, journals and the World Wide Web is also used as an
important research tool. The analysis of the data and information collected is done in a theoretical
perspective using hegemonic stability theory and cycles of hegemony and war theory. As per the study, the US
foreign policy during the II World War, decline of Britain’s power, post-II World War and Cold War policies
of the US and the disintegration of the Soviet Union paved the way for US hegemony in the world order.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZHow Japanese Manufacturing Ideally Words
http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12043
How Japanese Manufacturing Ideally Words
Ubayachandra, E.G.
At present, it is noted that Operations Management has made a Considerable change in manufacturing field.
It is highly visible in Japanese management practice today. Japanese management is very popular in
manufacturing. In this practice, the newly introduced concepts namely Just-In-Time (JIT), Total quality
control (TQC) and Kanban play a greater role. How do these concepts become more popular in the real
practice today? Secrecy behind this is that they have shown so feasible in the Japanese management practice
today. Currently a more comprehensive understanding of these new concepts and the Japanese practice has
led to their usage throughout the world during 1970s and on into the 1980s. In Japanese management
practice employee involvement has become very popular. Openness and total employee involvement are
important to Japanese. All employees help to solve production problems when they occur. The Japanese
workers are specially well-equipped to participate in decision making. One of the most often discussed aspects
of the Japanese management is lifetime employment. It allows employees to take risks and offer suggestions
that improve operations. Productivity in United States failed to keep pace with that of other industrial
countries. (J.eromeA.Mark, 1979). During this era, many foreign companies started to carve out substantial
niches for themselves in United States markets. Prominent examples for this situation are Nissan, Toyota,
Sanyo, and Sony. Under this climate, managers in United States have become acutely aware of a more
competitive worldwide market. Here, the competitiveness is a frequent topic of discussion at present among
managers and government officials and in the mass media. Competitiveness can be defined as the relative
standing of one competitor against other rivals. It is of course like the game of musical chairs. The major
three American automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have worries about their
organizations’ relative standing in the United States automobile marketplace. Competitiveness has become a
prominent business and government concerns in the era of global business as a contest among nations.
Members of the mass media routinely talk about the competitiveness is a benchmark for past performance. In
this case, the Japanese companies play a greater role at present. These companies have a significant
percentage of the world Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) market. This rapidly increasing competition has
meant decreased market shares of United States and Canadian business practices. Before this challenging
situation especially United States and Canada have refined their attention on cost control, productivity
improvement and quality. Since 1970s Japan has penetrated into North American markets. Now it is repeated
itself in Western Europe. Under this climate, North American business practices are gaining a greater
appreciation of the strategies implemented by the giant international competitors, Particularly the Japanese
manufacturers. As such, it is worthwhile to understand the Japanese management practice and the secrecy
behind their manufacturing. As the situation is so, it was a puzzle to the author that why Sri Lanka is still at
the bottom of the industrialization.Also, the author aims to point out the manner in which existing industries
in Sri Lanka ought to be restructured. Especially, this message would be given to the owners of the industries
here and the policy markers. Moreover, a vacuum of providing opinions in this respect was also indentified
by the author. The ideas have been presented along with this paper methodologically. It was concluded here
that as western companines now learn from Japanese, Sri Lanka should essentially absorb and implement
the Japanese management techniques to develop our industries.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZThe applicability of adopting European Union’s integration model in South Asia: A comparative analysis of EU and SAARC
http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12042
The applicability of adopting European Union’s integration model in South Asia: A comparative analysis of EU and SAARC
Gunasena, T.
The European integration is three decades older than the South Asian integration. At present European Union
(EU) stands as an outstanding regional body with huge success in the world. South Asian integration has not
yet completed the basic premises of economic integration and the aim of this paper is to comparatively analyze
the two regional integration processes and to identify how far is it appropriate to adopt the European
integration model to accelerate the South Asian integration in the future. One specific objectives of this paper is
to identify the core differences between the two regional settings and next objective is to determine the
theoretical relevance of certain existing theories in describing the two integration processes. Another specific
objective is to evaluate the suitability of adopting EU model in South Asia and then to recommend the necessary
reforms for South Asia to attain better integration.
To that end the data triangulation method has been used to accumulate secondary data from multiple sources
available in electronic and printed form including books, journals, web, reports, historical records and treaties.
Qualitative content analysis has been used since this is a documentary analysis and Content analysis evaluate
document texts and to test theoretical relevance to understand data more comprehensively and scientifically. It
will test prevailing theories in different contexts when compare the categories of different settings.
Key findings depicts that there is a sharp diversity between the EU and South Asian region in terms of trade,
economic development, human development, industrialization, urbanization, trade liberalization, income levels,
poverty alleviation and political integration. Amidst these differences the applicability of adopting the European
model proves to be a failure due to many factors. The democratic nature of the countries and their practice of
free market economic policies along with the successful resolutions for political tensions in Europe significantly
caused the long term success of European integration whereas South Asian countries are suffering from huge
diversities in economic, geographic, cultural, trade and military terms within the region and hesitate to cooperate
with one another due to these differences. Indo-Pakistan political tensions blended with smaller states’
fear psychosis of Indian hegemony is the greatest constraint for better integration in South Asia. South Asia
required rearranging the structure of its regional organization and opening avenues to discuss contentious
issues among member states and needing to establish real democracies in their countries apart from building
strong and reliable interactions among people to people contacts while adopting more comprehensive free
market economic policies domestically.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZPoverty impacts of agricultural trade liberalisation in Sri Lanka: A review of the literature
http://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12041
Poverty impacts of agricultural trade liberalisation in Sri Lanka: A review of the literature
Ranathunga, S.P.B.
Any policy reform will bring positive impacts as well as adverse impacts to the society, depending on the
economy and on the characteristics of the population group. The impacts of trade liberalisation, particularly
the impact of trade policies in developed countries and inequality in developing economies, is strongly
debated in the international trade and development arena. Objective of this paper is to present a
comprehensive review of the theoretical and empirical literature on the effect of agricultural trade
liberalisation on poverty, in particular, focusing in Sri Lanka.
Methods used for analysing the complex poverty impacts of trade liberalisation include partial equilibrium
models, econometric analysis, general equilibrium models, and micro/macro simulation models, which
combine macro-level simulation with micro-level household models. Agricultural trade liberalisation in
particular tends to adversely affect small farmers in developing countries while large scale farmers/producers
and the farmers from developed countries gain through agricultural trade liberalisation. Therefore,
agricultural trade liberalisation tends to supports consumers while adversely affecting rural producers.
However, country-specific studies are needed to explore the outcomes for particular groups in particular
countries. Each and every policy reform will bring positive impact as well as adverse impact to society,
depending on the economy and on the characteristics of the population group.
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z