Browsing by Author "Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C."
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Item The Communication Impact Of Intermediaries on the Marketing of Plytunnel Farmers with Special Reference to Welimada and Bandarawela Areas(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2010) Harshana, S.L.S.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.The Polytunnel farming is one of the modern agricultural practices carried out by Sri Lankan farmers mainly those who are in Welimada and Bandarawela areas. Majority of the farmers use intermediaries as their main marketing channel of information. The research was conducted with the aim of investigating the impact of intermediaries' communication on marketing practices of Polytunnel farmers and thereby to identify the accessibility of Polytunnel farmers to the marketing information. Data were collected from 74 Polytunnel farmers selected using random sampling technique through interviews and the data collection was based on the aspects of market, marketing mix and market performance. The results of the qualitative analysis show that farmers who are working with an institutional framework such as farmers working under the Export Development Board are getting adequate amount of information. Moreover, it was identified that the amount of information received by the farmers are varied on the basis of the type of intermediary with whom they are dealing, knowledge of farmers and the relationship between the intermediary and the farmer. In addition, it was able to identify that those who are practicing the formal marketing techniques can gain more information. In the light of considering all these it is clear that a collaborative approach of farmers and a formal institutional framework will enhance the accessibility of farmers to marketing information. Key words: Marketing Intermediaries, Polytunnel Farmers, Marketing InformationItem Differences of Employee Commitment in terms of the Employee Personal Characteristics in Commercial Banks of Mannar District(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2013) Christalin, R.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Employee commitment can be defined as a collective effect of employees’ awareness on the organizational goals and objectives, the willingness to exert high efforts on behalf of the organization and the true retention intention to stay within the organization (Potter et al., 1974). According to Allen and Meyer (1991), there are three types of organizational commitment namely, affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Affective commitment represents employee’s emotional attachment to organization and its goals, continuance commitment represents awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization and normative commitment represents feeling of obligation to remain with an organization.“Organizations of the 21 century are concerned about how to foster employee environment. Organizational success and sustainability require exceptional contributions from the workforce” (Benjamin, 2012). Even though there are many factors affecting the employees’ commitment, personal characteristics of employees (demographic factors) play a vital role in determining the level of commitment of employees. For instance, Gallie and White (1993) found that commitment of employees was related to personal characteristics. With reference to the past research findings, it was clear that there are contradictory ideas in relation to identification of the difference of employee’s commitment in terms of the employee personal characteristics. This matter has poorly been researched in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the differences of employee commitment in terms of the employee personal characteristics with special reference to public and private sector licensed commercial banks in Mannar District. Methodology The study site of the present study was Mannar district and the population of the study was employees who are working for licensed commercial banks. The sample was comprised with 65 employees from two public licensed commercial banks and five private licensed commercial banks. Accordingly, 37 employees from public banks and 27 employees from private banks were included in the sample. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire based on commitment dimensions defined by Meyer and Allen (1991) and the employee commitment questionnaire developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) was employed to measure the level of employee commitment. Personal characteristics of employee included in this study were gender, age, educational level, marital status and job tenure. Data was analyzed by using One-Way ANOVA test in order to identify the differences of employee commitment in terms of personal characteristics. Results and Discussion Table 1 summarizes the mean values of commitment level of employees in terms of personal characteristics. The commitment level of employees in terms of gender in public banks seems considerably different while the difference of commitment level is slight in case of private banks. In terms of age, the commitment level of public employees is at its peak among the employees who are in the age category of 16-25 years while those who are in the age category of 25-35 years depicting a lower mean commitment. This tendency is in contrast to the situation in private banks in which the highest commitment is accounted by the employees who are in the age of 25-35 years. The commitment level of employees in terms of marital status shows an interesting finding as the public employees’ trend is reversed in the case of private employees where married employees are showing a higher commitment.Item Firm level entrepreneurship and firm performance: with special reference to the hotel industry in Sri Lanka(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Katugampala, S.D.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.According to the central bank of Sri Lanka, country has been experiencing a higher economic growth over the past few years and is still growing at a healthy rate due to improvements of few key performing industries such as hotel industry and such industries need to be more entrepreneurial at the firm level and have strong strategic outlook to face competition and rapid growth. Firm level entrepreneurship (FLE) has been defined using various terminologies such as strategic posture, corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and this term measures the extent to which a firm is entrepreneurial (Davis, 2007). EO and CE are two commonly used constructs of FLE (Hosseini et al., 2012).EO includes the entrepreneurial tendency of top management of a firm, (Hosseini et al., 2012)and CE is identified as actual entrepreneurial actions of the firm (Mokaya, 2012). Both CE and EO lead to have higher levels of firm performance (FP) Hosseini et al., (2012). However, as to Hosseini et al, (2012) and Fis and Cetindamar (2009) FLE it is not only the entrepreneurial intensity of the top management personals but also the actual entrepreneurial actions undertaken by the firm although many researches had related either EO or CE with FP in their researches. Thus, it seems that conceptualizing FLE by using either EO or CE creates a blind picture of entrepreneurship phenomenon. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to assess the level of FLE, EO and CE of the firms in the Sri Lankan hotel sector to identify the relationship between FLE and FP. Thus, EO was conceptualized as innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996) and CE was conceptualized as management support, work discretion, rewards, time availability and organizational boundary (Kuratko et al.,2007). Moreover, FP was measured in terms of the perceptual measurements on market share growth, ROI growth, sales growth and cash flow growth. Methodology The population of this study was Colombo district hotels those have got registered under Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) and that included 40. However, only 37 firms responded making the response rate of 92.5 percent. Data was collected by using a structured questionnaire and CE was measured by using Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument - CEAI (Kuratko et al., 1990) and EO was measured by using self-developed questionnaire. The reliability of questionnaire was measured by using Cronbach’s Alpha and the results confirmed that all the constructs were well above the acceptable level of 0.7 and hence executed for data collection. In assessing the level of EO and CE of the firms, mean, standard deviation and percentages were used while in order to identify the relationship between EO & CE and FP, a multiple linear regression was employed and can be specified as: FP = β0 + β1 EO+β2CE +ε. Results and discussion The average levels of CE and EO were 3.607 and 4.11 respectively confirming a higher level of EO with compared to CE. However, the difference standard deviation further evident that it is a slight difference. Nevertheless, as to the Table 1, majority of the firms (60%) was at the high level of CE while 86% of the firms were demonstrating a high level of EO. Interestingly, a negligible level of firms was at the low level of CE (3%) and EO (Nill) implying that the Colombo District hotels are seemingly maintaining a fair level of high CE and EO level. The statistically significant (P<0.01) strong positive correlation values of CE (0.715) and EO (0.688) confirmed that there is a positive association between CE & EO and FP. Regression assumptions of Normality, Homoscedasticity (Pattern-less scatter), Multicolinearity (Table 2-c) and Auto-correlation (Table 2-a) were checked and got confirmed that data meet all the blue properties.Item Gender Variation and Job Satisfaction With Special Reference to the Commercial Banks(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2010) Rajapaksha, R.M.D.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.This research study mainly investigated the relationship between gender variation and job satisfaction among banking employees in Colombo district of Sri Lanka. Moreover, the study expected to identify whether there is a difference between Gender Variation and Job Satisfaction of private and public banking employees. A random sample of one hundred-twenty employees was examined through a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was mainly based on the Non parametric test of Mann-Whitney. Apart from that Radar Graphs were also developed to depict the results of the study. The results indicate that there is a significant difference between level of satisfaction of male employees and female employees. Moreover, it was found that the level of job satisfaction of male employee is greater than the female employees regardless of the sector. Furthermore, it was identified that the level of job satisfaction of male employees in the private banking sector is greater than that of female employees in the private banking sector whereas the level of job satisfaction of female in the public banking sector is higher than that of male employees in the public banking employees. Key words: Job Satisfaction, Male Employees, Female Employees, Private banks public banksItem Identification of Relationships between Firm Traits and Innovation Potential With Reference to Software Industry in Sri Lanka(Uva Wellassa University of Srilanka, 2011) Vijayanthi, W.A.U.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Note: See the PDF Version According to Joseph Schumpeter (1950) the concept of "Creative Destruction" emphasizes that the introduction of new and better ways, products and services makes the previous ways, products and services obsolete. Consequently, the role of innovation appreciated as a key driver of the economic growth. In the organizational context, innovations may be associated with performance and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, competitive positioning, etc. All the organizations have to be capable of introducing innovations regardless of being technological firms or not. The term innovation refers to a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and innovative changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. Innovations are typically adding value to the existing operation of the business and create a positive impact towards the organization. The work environment of the firm, motivation towards innovation, experience of the business, number of and skills of employees of the business and all other financial and non-financial factors affect the ability of generating innovations. Researchers have argued on the relevance of various firm traits to innovative efforts and associated performance. Frequently considered firm traits include degree of diversification (Pascoe,1987), and Research and Development (R&D) ( Dujowich, 2007), Age of the firm, extent of local ownership, firm size, share of export in sales, type of ownership (Lee, 2004), firm turnover (Elj, 2009), firm size, ownership, R&D activities, patent (Hanel, 2002). According to Schumpeter (1942), large firms had become the drivers of the innovation in the US economy. In addition, capacity of a firm to be profitable from innovation might depend on its size and he claimed that large firms are more likely to innovate than small fi rms. This research supplemented the limited pool of current literature on firm traits and innovation potential in Sri Lankan context. Accordingly, the objectives of this study were to identify relationship between firm traits and innovation potential and to identify most critical factor which determines the innovation potential in Software industry in Sri Lanka.Item The Impact of Brand Image on Customer Loyalty with Reference to the Hotel Industry in Colombo District(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2016) Abisheka, A.D.L.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Brand image is considered to be a critical determinant of the growth and performance of hotel businesses theoretically. Yet, the revenue of star rated hotels in Colombo district is reported a higher variation. This study examined the impact of brand image on the customer loyalty of registered star rated hotels in Colombo district. Attract and retain customers is vital to hotel's success. Thus, the main research objective is to identify the determinants of brand image impact on customer loyalty. Brand image dimension: sensory, emotional and cognitive were considered as the independent variables and customer loyalty was considered as dependent variable. To fulfil the research objective five tourists from each 41 star category hotels were surveyed with a structured questionnaire. According to research findings most guests are male and the frequent age category of visitation is representing the middle age. Employing a simple linear regression this study found that brand image is a strong predictor of customer loyalty. There was a strong positive association between all the customer loyalty dimensions and brand image. This study informs the management of the star rated hotels on the strategic direction to be taken in promoting the business. Keywords: Brand image, Customer loyalty, Hotel industryItem Investigation of Interactive Effects of Personality Traits on Job Performance with Special Reference to Insurance Companies in Badulla District(Uva Wellassa University of Srilanka, 2011) Herath, H.M.S.H.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Note: See the PDF Version Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment (Judge, 2009). Performance is the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that frames an employee's job. It reflects how well the employees fulfill their job requirements. Job performance is the net effect of the employee's effort. Performance implied the interrelationship among effort, abilities, role perception and results produced by the particular employee. In order to have a higher performance and productivity, there should be a proper match between personality of a person and the job that he/she is performing. When the personality and the job being performed are not matched with each other, those employees may be seen as people who are very uncomfortable at work and in turn will hinder the productivity. As far as personality traits are concerned, an individual would not have merely one type of personality trait but a combination of many personality traits. Accordingly, the personality is not a mere reflection of one type of a personality trait but there might be a dominant personality trait which is also shaped by the existence of minor levels of other personality traits. However, these different combinations of personality traits would have different impacts on the performance level of the employee. Personality is generally accepted as an applicable forecaster of job performance in several recent Meta analyses for example (Barrick and Mount, 1991 and Algodo, 1997). In the light of the prior research studies, what makes clear is that even though the studies have been conducted on personality.traits, the interactive effects of personality have limitedly been examined and it is hard to find out research on this area in the Sri Lankan context. Moreover, the available literature is also contributing to generate contradictory ideas on the same issue. Thus, this research study was conducted with the objective of investigating the impact of interactive effects of personality traits on job performance with reference to the insurance Companies in Badulla District.Item Job Satisfaction and Organizational Performance (With Special Performance to Public and Private Bank in Badulla Area)(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2010) Wijerathne, E.M.H.D.K.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Job satisfaction is the terminology used to describe whether employees are happy and contented and fulfilled their desires and needs at work. This is most important for working environment to obtain great service from employees. Organizational performance also the most important criteria to measure the success of the organization by achieving their own goals, objectives, mission and vision. This research paper makes study about relationship between job satisfaction and organizational performance in banking sector. This study examines job satisfaction of 50 employees in Badulla. In addition to that to observe the significance between private banks and public bank regarding this job satisfaction and organizational performance was another aim of this research. Job satisfaction criteria hope to measure by using monetary benefits and non - monetary benefits. Promotions, Supervise, Appreciation of work, Training, Job security, Good working conditions, Communication and Health insurance benefits had used as indicators of these non - monetary benefits.Item Job Satisfaction and Organizational Performance(with Special Reference to Public and Private Banks in Badulla)(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2010) Wijerathne, E.M.H.D.K.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Organizational performances reflect the degree of commitment of a business organization on its goals and the degree of efficiency in reaching their business goals. Hence the business organizations adapt every possible measures in optimizing the organizational performances. The Job satisfaction has been a quite repeated terminology the local and global business context as it is believed to be a driving force of higher business performances. The study aimed at assessing the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational performance in banking sector. Further, the study aimed at observing the differences in job satisfaction and organizational performance of between private and public sector banks in Badulla. The simple random sampling technique has been occupied within the study and 50 employees were interviewed from both private and public sector banks in Badulla. Both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used in analyzing data. The results indicated that there is a positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational performance. Further, the results reveal that that the relationship of the private sector banks is strongly positive compared to the public sector banks in the Badulla District. Key words: Job satisfaction, Organizational performances, Banking sectorItem Market orientation of firms in food processing industry: Effect of outside-in capabilities(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Kalupahana, K.N.; Kumari, K.W.S.N.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Market Orientation is a business culture committed to the continuous creation of superior value for the customers and can be defined as the organization wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments, and organization- wide responsiveness to it (Narver and Slater et al., 1990; Jaworski and Kohli, et al., 1990). For that successfully market-driven organizations should have a strong relationship between market orientation and marketing capabilities. It was suggested that when successfully implementing a market orientation development of, “superior market-sensing; customer-linking; channel-bonding and technology-monitoring capabilities (Day et al., 1994) is required. Therefore, this study aims to identify the relationship between outside-in capabilities and market orientation in food processing industry in Sri Lanka. Methodology Data was collected by using a structured questionnaire and in the absence of a sampling frame, a random sample of 44 companies were selected as the population with use of Stock Exchange and other resources. All these 44 companies were taken as the sample because of the less number of companies in the population and only 31 companies had responded. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by using Cronbach’s Alpha. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the level of market orientation in food processing firms in Sri Lanka. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were applied to identify the relationship between outside-in capabilities and market orientation in the food processing firms in Sri Lanka.Item Organizational Support and Intrapreneurship: A Study with reference to Software Development Industry in Sri Lanka(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2013) Asangika, R.M.T.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Intrapreneurship is also known as corporate entrepreneurship and corporate venturing (Burgelman, 1983; Burgelman, 1984; MacMillan et al., 1986) and it is the practice of developing a new venture within an existing organization to exploit a new opportunity and create economic value (Pinchot, 1985). More specifically, this refers to both creation of new ventures within existing organizations and transformation of these organizations through innovation and strategic renewal. There are evidences that intrapreneurship helps managers to renew and revitalize their businesses, to innovate, and to enhance their overall business performance (Kuratko et al., 1990, Antoncic and Hisrich, 1990). Organizational support is of greater importance for intrapreneurship since the organizational supportive environment, as an internal climate factor is described as a facilitator for organizations to spur organizational entrepreneurial activities (Miller and Friesen, 1982). Previous researchers have found that the organizational support plays a major role for the accomplishment of intrapreneurship (Lutfihak et al., 2010). Large number of Sri Lankan patents has been secured by the software industry according to the Intellectual Property Rights Office in Sri Lanka. Further, Meyer (2003) argues that the software development sector has many entrepreneurial opportunities and they have exploited those entrepreneurial opportunities by using their employees’ ideas and by using the commitment of employees. Accordingly, the first objective was to assess the level of intrapreneurship and the level of organizational support for intrapreneurship in software development sector in Sri Lanka. Second objective was to identify whether there are differences of the level of intrapreneurship in terms of organizational support. Methodology The population of this study was software development firms which have got registered in Sri Lanka Association of Software Industry (SLASI). Further, there are 70 software companies which have got registered under SLASI and the aim was to study the whole population. However, only 42 firms responded making a response rate of 60%. Data was collected by using a structured questionnaire. In addition, Cronbach Alpha reliability test was employed to assess the validity of the questionnaire. Thus, organizational support was measured by using Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument developed by Kuratko et al. (1990), which has shown reliability level of 0.88in the study context. The questionnaire items to measure intrapreneurship developed by the researcher have shown a reliability level of 0.89 confirming that these levels are exceeding the general acceptable level. Hence, it is suitable for the further processing. Data were analyzed using Kruskal Wallis test. Results and Discussion Mean values for the dimensions of main two variables namely, Organizational support and intrapreneurship can be summarized as follows (Figure 1, 2). Accordingly, it can be observed that mean value of the proactiveness level of the surveyed firms is at a higher level with compared to maximum level a firm can be proactive (Figure1). Further, innovativeness and new business venturing are at a relatively low level. Considering the mean value of level of organizational support, except management support (70.02), all other four dimensions are operating at a considerably lower level than the maximum level a firm can do. Rewarding or reinforcing (19.14) is at the highest low level out of the weak four dimensions mentioned above which can be graphically illustrated as follows (Figure2). According to the descriptive statistics, it was found that nearly 64.3% of the sample (27 firms) was accounting for low intrapreneurship level and the rest 35.7% of the sample (15 firms) showing a high level of intrapreneurship.Item Perception Differences of Socio- cultural Impacts of Tourism: A Study with Reference to Demographic Factors in Hikkaduwa Region(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2013) Tharanga, M.A.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Tourism is often referred to as the world’s largest industry and regarded as a mean of achieving development in destination areas (Sharpley, 2002). The perception is a process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them. Though necessarily based on incomplete and unverified information, perception is equated with reality for most practical purposes and guides human behavior in general. Ap (1992) and Lankford (1994) indicate that the perceptions and attitudes of residents toward the impacts of tourism tend to be a key planning and policy consideration for the successful development and operation of existing and future projects. According to Pizam and Milman (1984) “tourism is contributing to the changes in value systems, individual behavior, family relationships collective lifestyles, moral conduct, creative expressions, traditional ceremonies and community organization”. Further, in a study using segmentation analysis examining residents’ attitudes toward tourism in Scotland from a socio-demographic perspective, Brougham and Butler (1981) found that there are significant differences in residents’ attitudes related to local and personal characteristics, with tourist contact, length of residence, age and language. Moreover, in a study measuring residents’ attachment levels in a host community in New Braunfels, Texas, Um and Crompton (1987) found that the more attached a resident was to his or her community in terms of birthplace, heritage, and length of residence, the less favorably he or she perceived tourism impacts. Similarly, the results of the study of Kusadasi et al. (2002) witness a significant relationship between age and length of residence and attitude toward tourism development. In terms of length of residence, Girard and Gartner (1993) discovered that both long-term and short-term second homeowners appreciated the availability of goods and services from increased tourism, but long-term residents tended not want to see an increase in tourism development in their study in Wisconsin. Tourism industry has a great impact on socio-cultural aspects of a country (Bandara, 2001). With reference to the past research findings it was clear that, there are different ideas in relation to the perception on social and cultural impacts of tourism and this may be due to contextual differences and methodological differences. Hence, this study was focusing on residents’ perception on social and cultural impacts of tourism in Hikkaduwa, which is a rapidly growing tourism zone of the country. Therefore, main objective was to examine the perceptual differences of residents’ on socio-cultural impacts of tourism in Hikkaduwa tourism zone in terms of demographic factors of residents. Methodology A random sample of 100 residents from Hikkaduwa region was selected for the study and the principle resident of the household was given with the questionnaire. The structured questionnaire used to collect data was comprised with two main sections and section -1 was focusing on the demographic information of the resident and the section-2 was comprised with 5 point Likert Scale questions to measure the perception on socio-cultural impacts of tourism. The data were analyzed by using non-parametric tests of Mann-Witney U test when there are two categories in the independent variable and Kruskalwallis test when there are more than two categories in the independent variable.Item Personality Traits and Conflict Handling Styles: Exploring Relationships with Special Reference to Tea Plantation Sector in Nuwaraeliya District(Uva Wellassa University of Srilanka, 2011) Lakmali, K.N.U.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Note: See the PDF Version Conflict is a perceived incompatibility of interests, which is often caused by a misalignment of goals, motivations or actions between two or more parties who are interdependent, that can be real or only perceived to exits (Kenneth, 1992). The early approach to conflict assumed that all conflict was bad. Conflict was viewed negatively, and it was used synonymously with terms such as violence, destruction, and irrationality to reinforce its negative connotation. However, in accordance with the modern approach, conflict is viewed as potentially useful to energize a company. Due to the effects of the globalization and speedy transformation of the society, the potential for conflict in daily interaction is increasing. Conflict handling styles are typically seen as responses to particular conflict situations. Opposite to the "conflict avoidance" perspective of traditionalists, the "con Flict management" perspective of modern approach recognizes that while conflict does have associated costs, it can also bring great benefits to the organizations. The success of the management depends heavily on an ability to handle conflict effectively (Antonioni, 1990). In accordance with Henry Mintzberg (1975), every manager must spend a good part of his time responding to high-pressure disturbances with the managerial role of disturbance handler. As mentioned by Friedman (2000) the way an individual think or believe about someone or something (perception) is based on his/ her personality. According to All port (1943), personality is the dynamid organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment and understanding the personality can help managers predict how a person might act in a particular situation. This attests that there must be a relationship between personality traits and conflict handling styles. As Explained in the past research findings it was clear that, there are contradictory ideas in relation to the relationship between personality traits and conflict handling styles and this matter has poorly been researched in the Sri Lankan context. Conflict can be manifested in a variety of ways. Some signs are outwardly visible, others are more repressed. Strikes are considered as one of the indicators of conflict. In accordance with the classification of strikes by the Labour department of Sri Lanka, the "Tea plantation" sector accounts for the highest strike rate, as a single sector. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between personality traits and conflict handling styles with special reference to Tea Plantation sector in Sri Lanka.Item Relationship between Entrepreneurial Education and Strategic Orientation(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2016) Gamage, P.G.M.S.K.; Weerakoon, W.M.P.G.C.Despite the importance of entrepreneurial education in encouraging strategic behaviour of SMEs, there is a dearth of literature examining this link. A sample of 50 SMEs owner managers in Badulla Divisional Secretariat was investigated with the aim of identifying the relationship between entrepreneurial education and strategic orientation. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Overall level of strategic orientation of the studied sample was at a medium level while the entrepreneurial education level was at a high level. The regression model (52.9% R-square) confirmed that entrepreneurial education is a strong predictor (P<0.01) of strategic orientation. This study informs the provincial level policy makers the direction they should take in designing and delivering the training programmes for future entrepreneur development initiatives. Keywords: Entrepreneurial education, Strategic orientation, SMEs, Owner managers