Browsing by Author "Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C."

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    COVID-19 Impact on E-commerce Usage: An Empirical Evidence from Sri Lankan SME Sector (With special reference to Northern Province)
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2021) Saisinthu, S.; Kulathunga, K.M.M.C.B.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    The adoption of e-commerce in the small and medium sector has become one of the main business improvement areas in the Small and Medium Enterprises that seems unavoidable in competing and even surviving in a highly competitive industry before and during COVID-19. This study focus on the impact of e-commerce usage in small and medium enterprises under the COVID-19 outbreak. It is found that many firms are having a difficult situation with business operation and attempted to use e- commerce to upgrade their operation and competitive capabilities for survival in the industry. To review this problem in the Sri Lankan Small and Medium Enterprise sector, Technological, Organizational and Environmental model was modified and used as a conceptual framework to review the problem in the Sri Lankan small and medium enterprises. This study focused on the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, consisting of five districts: Jaffna, Killinochchi, Vavuniya, Mannar and Mullaitivu. This research was conducted based on quantitative survey method. The structured questionnaire was distributed among 120 samples of small and medium enterprises, which was selected using a simple random technique. The data collected through this survey was analyzed using SPSS and PLS-SEM (SmartPLS) version 3 to examine the relationship between variables and test the hypothesis. The findings of the study reveal that perceived benefits, e-commerce knowledge, external pressure and supply chain integration have a significant positive impact. In the other hand, IT infrastructure has an insignificant effect on e-commerce usage. In addition, the benefits obtained from this study can be used to empower e-commerce usage in the small and medium enterprise, including manufacturing industry, service industry and trade industry. Also, it will enhance the quality of providing goods and services. The origin of this research is combining effect of Technological, Organizational and Environmental and Diffusion of Innovation theory on e-commerce usage for the Small and Medium Enterprises to contribute to the literature. Keywords: COVID-19; E-commerce; Small and Medium enterprises; Organizational; Technological; Environmental
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    Customer Satisfaction on Service Encounters in the Special Reference to State Banks of the Western Province in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2021) Mihiranga, W.W.L.K.; Siyambalapitiya, J.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    Banks as a service provider, offer similar kinds of products, and those are differed by the quality of their service. Banks involved in the provision of a range of services including traditional banking services and beyond that it involves the provision of self-banking services. When banks providing a service, banks should have the ability to satisfy customers in the purchasing movement it is known as service encounter. The concept of service encounter reveals that, direct interaction between customer and service provider. This study focused on traditional and self-service bank encounter quality and how it affects customer satisfaction. Recovery, spontaneity, and adaptability are the common encounter themes that are available in the literature. However, traditional service encounter quality measures are not efficient to measure the self-service encounter quality. The researcher had to consider technology-based service quality measures to evaluate the self-service encounter quality such as easy to use, convenience, security, and efficiency. A quantitative approach was used to conduct the research and data were collected from 171 youth state bank account holders in the western province through a Stratified random sampling technique therefore, Bank of Ceylon, People's Bank, National Savings Bank, Regional Development Bank selected for the study due to their huge branch network compared to other public banks. The online survey method used to collect the data and SPSS 25 software was used to analysing the data. The hypotheses were tested by using Co- relations analysis and simple linear regression, and multiple linear regression was used to analyse the research objectives. Findings reveal that, the strong positive impact of encounter service quality towards customer satisfaction (0.811). In addition that, traditional and self-service encounter quality has a positive and significant impact on bank customer encounter satisfaction. Spontaneity is the highest contributor for the traditional service encounter quality while recovery shows minimum contribution. When considering the Self-service encounter respectively convenience, ease to use, security, and efficiency significantly impact the encounter satisfaction. Furthermore, Self-service is the most promising banking method in the youth. However, banks have to set a precedent benchmark in both banking methods to offer greater convenience to customers. Keywords: Service encounter quality; Service encounter satisfaction; State bank
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    Impact of Crowdsourcing on Generating Innovations
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2021) Jayasekara, J.R.S.; Jayawardhane, A.A.K.K.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    Crowdsourcing is an innovation technique implement through a combination of crowd and outsourcing. It is a kind of internet-based people outsourcing to accomplish organizational tasks. Traditional innovational aspects are a burden for companies because innovative ideas are only generated through internal organizational methods. In that case, crowdsourcing has become popular within the business sector in the last few years. Since people outsourcing through internet platforms is a common factor within IT sector, the IT industry is known as one of the most innovative business sectors. The Sri Lankan IT sector plays a major role in the country‟s economy as the fourth largest export income generator. The influence of crowdsourcing on generating innovations in Sri Lanka has not been explored in the existing literature. Therefore, this research has been carried out to find the impact, association, and the existing usage of crowdsourcing and innovations in Sri Lanka. The data were collected by distributing a self-developed questionnaire across 50 IT firms that are registered in SLASSCOM in the Colombo district. Data analysis was performed through descriptive analysis, correlation coefficient, and simple linear regression analysis. The results of the study denote that there is a strong positive relationship between crowdsourcing and innovations in Sri Lanka and also the existing usage of the concepts on developing innovations at a satisfactory level in the country. Outcomes of the research will lead policy makers to make decisions to increase the activities related to the crowdsourcing. The overall research findings provide managerial and theoretical implications for further enhancement of the crowdsourcing on generating innovations in Sri Lanka. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Innovations; Internet; IT Industry
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    Impact of Employees’ Engagement in Sport Activities on Job Performance in Sri Lankan Business Organizations
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2018) Liyanaarachchi, W.L.R.I.A.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    With the high competition in the current business world, organizations have extra focused on personnel performance by considering sports. In most of the organizations due to the lack of knowledge about the importance of sports most of the employees are not engaging in sports. In foreign countries, they have understood its importance in relation to employee performance. But in the Sri Lankan context, there were lack of researches relates to impact of employee's Engagement in Sports activities on Job Performance in Sri Lankan Business Organizations with the mediating role of Vigor. Thus, the study mainly attaches with four objectives. First, recognize the existing level of sports engagement, vigorous and job performance of the employees. Second, determine relationships among sports engagement, vigorous and job performance. Third, identify, engage in sports activities impact employees' job performance and finally identify the mediating role of vigorous on the relationship between engagement in sport activities and employee performance. Questionnaires were distributed by using a convenience sampling method to collect primary data from 140 employees in business organizations who are champions and runners up team members of Sri Lanka mercantile playing team games. The data were analyzed using correlation coefficient, Regression analysis, Baron and Kenny mediator analysis method and Sobel test with the support of SPSS 21.0.The findings of the study indicated that employees' engagement in sport activities is positively impact on job performance. Further, it found that Vigorous is significantly and partially mediates the relationship between engagement in sport activities and job performance. The findings of the research support to the businesses to make decisions regarding the improvement of employee's engagement in sport activities as the door to the enhancement of performance and to encourage employees towards sports.
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    Impact of financial leverage on firm performance: with special reference to manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.; Kulathunga, K.M.M.C.B.
    Capital structure plays a crucial role in enhancing performance of firms, by helping financial manager to select optimal mix of debt and equity to give required rate of return for shareholders. Generally, due to great cost of capital within the equity and tax advantage of debt, leverage consider as the optimal solution for a company, to gain financial resources. Therefore research is going to identify impact of financial leverage to the performance of firms within Sri Lankan context. According to the Akhtar et.al (2012) leverage is consider as proportions of borrowing funds from outside sources. Through past decades, various theories set the foundation to optimize the debt financing usage in organizations. Warne and Rasoolpur (2013), mention that the greater use of debt will increases the net return to the equity shareholders. Moreover, Akthar et.al (2012) stated that leverage may enhance the profit after taxes; due to lower interest rates .Then eventually the higher earnings of firm will result to the higher earnings per share and then these higher dividend payout ratios which may increase the firm’s performance. Duties of owners (shareholders) and managers are different in every organization. Due to that, management is more concern about personal gains. This may cause conflict situations within organizations. For that debt finance act as a control tool to restrict the opportunistic behavior of managers. On the other hand, Usage of debt is tradeoff between risk and return. Risk of the firm increase simultaneously with increasing leverage and leads towards liquidations and takeovers. Moreover, unbalanced debt will cause to financial distress cost and bankruptcy cost. Therefore, this research aims to investigate this scenario within manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, objectives of research were concluded, to examine the relationship of firm performance with short term debt (STDA), long term debt (LTDA) and total debt (TDA) respectively. Methodology Research was conducted regarding the Colombo Stock Exchange and population consists with manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka. 30 companies were used for the analysis. Data was collected through secondary data sources such as annual reports of companies through 5 years. Further, leverage was measured by using Long -Term Debt Ratio (LTDA), Short- Term Debt Ratio (STDA), Total Debt Ratio (TDA) which were used by Musiegaeth.al (2013) and Abort (2008). Firm performance proxy by Return on assets (ROA), Return on equity (ROE) and Gross pro fit margin (GPM) developed by Musiegaeth.al (2013) and Khan (2012). Data was analyzed by using Descriptive analysis, Correlation coefficient method and Regression analysis.
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    Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Engagement: With Special Reference to Apparel Industry
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2020) Wijesiri, N.G.T.D.; Ranasinghe, J.P.R.C.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    Maintaining and increasing employee engagement is one of the critical problems in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka. Novel organizations have become aware that leadership styles are determinant that can increase employee engagement. Leadership styles create intercommunication between the leader and the subordinates in the organizations. Thus, the study empirically evaluated job stress as the mediator between leadership styles and employee engagement of the middle and operational level employees in the apparel sector in Sri Lanka. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed by using convenient sampling method to secure responses from 100 middle and operational level employees working for top 05 apparel firms in Sri Lanka. The data were analyzed using correlation coefficient, regression, Baron and Kenny mediator assessment method, and Sobal test. The results of the study indicated that there is a positive relationship between leadership styles and employee engagement. Mediator assessment and Sobal test identified that job stress partially mediates the relationship between leadership styles and employee engagement. The findings show the importance of managers in building a positive and naive relationship with their middle and operational level employees to enhance employee engagement. Moreover, the study makes several recommendations. Managers should improve a good and friendly relationship between supervisors and subordinator. Furthermore, they should allow employees to raise questions, complain, and give comments at any time. Keywords: Leadership styles, Employee engagement, Job stress
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    The Impact of Social Media Marketing on The Purchase Intention of Environmentally Sustainable Cosmetic Products: The Role of Brand Trust as the Mediator (With Special Reference to Badulla District)
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2021) Batuwatta, S.C.; Jayasinghe, N.C.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    The Social media platforms emerged as a result of new technology and „social media marketing‟ is attracting the attention of business world as a prominent method of reaching a wider customer base. Social media marketing impacts on the purchasing intention of the customers and the role of brand trust is playing a vital role in the online business enviornemnt. However, in an enviornemnt where the customers tend to reflect a paradigm shift towards purchasing the environmentally sustainable products, the investigation of the impact of social media marketing on the purchase intention of environmentally sustainable cosmetic products or the role of brand trust in there, seems an area that is not discussed widely. Therefore, this study intended to investigate the impact of social media marketing on the purchase intention of environmentally sustainable cosmetic products with the mediation effect of brand trust. For this study both primary and secondary data were used and the primary data were collected online from 200 respondents by using a structured questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS statistics 25.0 and Smart PLS software. The findings of the study revealed that the social media marketing has a significant impact on the purchase intention of environmentally sustainable cosmetic products and is partially mediated by the brand trust. This study recommends, the managers and the marketers to focus more on offering some additional support to the consumers through their social media page designs and producing environmentally sustainable cosmetic products by utilizing more organic ingredients within the production process. Further, the future reaseachers are encouraged to investigate the respective area of study considering larger sample sizes with different other social media marketing dimensions in order to have more reliable output. Keywords: Social Media Marketing; Brand Trust; Purchase Intention; Environmentally Sustainable Cosmetic Products
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    Social Capital and Customer's Satisfaction on the Bank-Customer Relationship in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2021) Wijeweera, D.A.S.M.; Gunaratne, Y.M.C.; Amarawansha, T.G.A.H.C.
    Social capital, is a set of social organization characteristics, like trusts, norms, and networks which may leads to improve the behavioral and social efficiency through coordinated actions. There are less studies on the concept of social capital in the Sri Lankan context, particularly the nexus between social capital and customer‟s satisfaction on the relationship with the bank though it is an essential penomenan specially to the service sector organizations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of social capital on customer‟s satisfaction regarding the Bank-Customer relationship in Sri Lanka. Structural social capital, relational social capital, and cognitive social capital were considered as the diamentions of social capital while the re-patronage intention and negative word of mouth were used to measure the customer‟s relationship satisfaction. The sample of this study was 150 unsatisfied customers, selected 30 from each of the top five licensed commercial banks according to the Fitch Ratings (Pvt.) Ltd, 2020 using convenient sampling techniques. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire and the descriptive statistics were measured using SPSS version 26 software. The major analysis technique used in this study was the structural equation model in Smart PLS software. The results revealed that all three diamentions of social capital have a significant positive impact on customer's relationship satisfaction. This study recommends the service sector organizations to create meachnism to improve the social capital and there by improve the relationships with customers. Further this study contributes to the Sri Lankan literature in the context of social capital. Keywords: Social capital; Customer‟s satisfaction; Customer relationship; Banking sector; Sri Lanka