Sri Lanka Journal of Management Studies (SLJMS) -New volume dedicated to Professor (retired) Sunil Chandrasiri

Volume Two, Issue Two of Sri Lanka Journal of Management Studies (SLJMS) has been released. Sri Lanka Journal of Management (SLJMS) is a bi-annual, peerreviewed International Journal published by the Faculty of Management Studies, The Open University of Sri Lanka. SLJMS provides a seamless opportunity for scholars to engage in the development of the fast-growing field of management and get published in a business journal that has an excellent reach and prospects of substantial impact. The Covid 19 pandemic brought challenges to all of us in our professional and personal lives opening up many avenues towards the world of research.

The new issue of SLJMS dedicated to Professor (retired) Sunil Chandrasiri for his contribution to Sri Lankan research and education leadership. He is a scholar, leader, and professor. In the public sector education of Sri Lanka.

Only a few leaders can be seen with ingredients of transformational leadership qualities aligned with a scholarly contribution. As a Dean of Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS), University of Colombo Professor Sunil Chandrasiri has done a real change in terms of his key leadership attributes such as Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, Idealised Influence and Individualised Consideration which are leading qualities of transformational leadership.

He has introduced many programmes to the faculty with his visionary leadership, positioning FGS as the best institute in the education sector of Sri Lanka in terms of excellence and quality programme delivery. He has also contributed by way of conducting research pertaining to the education sector in Sri Lanka with studies such as ‘Financing of university education in Sri Lanka (Higher Education)’, ‘The Labour Market Experience of University Graduates in Sri Lanka (Higher Education Policy)’ and ‘The Higher Education Sector in a Paradox: A Case of Sri Lanka SAARC Journal Human Resource Development).

Prof. Sunil Chandrasiri was the Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies (2007-2015) and the Head, Department of Economics (20072008), University of Colombo. His publications in refereed journals cover several disciplines including Labour Economics, Environmental Economics, Industrial Economics and International Trade.

He has published five books on Employment-Intensive Growth, Skills Gap Analysis, Higher Education, Technical and Vocational Education and Impact of External Assistance Programmes on Education. His work also appears as Chapters in published books covering diverse areas such as Productivity, Good Jobs and International Trade, Labour Administration, Social Security, Over-education and Unemployment, Technical and Vocational Skills Training, Training and Labour Market Outcomes and Globalisation. His current research interests include gender and development, inclusive growth, informal sector and small & medium scale enterprise development.

Sunil Chandrasiri has also functioned as the Team Leader/ Deputy Team Leader to several donor-funded projects (World Bank, ADB, ILO, and IDRC) on Tertiary Education, Higher Education, Technical & Vocational Education, and Environmental Economics. He has worked extensively on industry and trade policy, small and medium scale enterprises, environmental economics, higher education, technical education & vocational training and labor market in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Vietnam and Mongolia.He was the Vice President (2000-2002) and Council Member (1998-2000), Sri Lanka Economic Association; Ex-Co Member (2010-2011), Organisation of Professional Association of Sri Lanka; Member of the Academic Board of Sri Lanka Institute of Bankers (2011-2013) and National Institute of Labour Studies (20122014). Sunil Chandrasiri collected his BA (Honours), BPhil and MA in Economics from the Department of Economics, The University of Colombo.

He also collected his MBA from the University of Hartford in the US and his PhD from La Trobe University in Australia.

This Issue of Sri Lanka Journal of Management Studies (SLJMS) includes articles from different domains in Management such as Finance Management, Marketing Management, Human Resource Management, Tourism Management as well as Library Management. The first article looks at the Determinants of Purchase Intention of Men’s Fairness Cream by looking at the role of Electronic Word of Mouth (E-Wom) Communication in formation of product-specific Attitudes of Sri Lankan Millennials.

The findings of the study observed that the both personal factors and product attributes have a significant impact on purchase intention whilst attitude towards consumption of the product category partially mediates the relationship between personal factors and purchase intention. Further, it argued that the presence of e-Wordof-Mouth (eWoM) communication negatively moderates the relationship between attitudes towards purchase intention of men’s fairness cream.

The main focus of the second paper is to identify corporate governance practices of commercial banks by measuring the level of corporate disclosures in the annual reports in relation to the corporate governance guidelines for Banks. By examining the annual reports of 2011 to 2018, the findings show a gradual increase in the level of disclosure and its categories over the observed period.

More interestingly the results also reveal that firm characteristics, turnover and profitability have a significant positive association with disclosure score, except for assets in place. The third paper of SLJMS observes the “The Mediating Effect of Brand Equity on the relationship between perceived quality of care and loyalty of customers towards the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for children, Colombo.”

As per the findings of the study, Perceived Quality of Care has a positive effect on the Patients Loyalty towards the hospital as with Brand image and it plays a mediating role in this relationship. Patients Loyalty mainly depends on the qualitative aspects of the services provided and not on the socio-economic factors of the patients. It has argued that Perceived Quality of Care received by the patients leads to building up Brand Equity in the hospital which in turn leads to Patients Loyalty towards Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Colombo.

The Next paper of Sri Lanka Journal of Management Studies (SLJMS) looks at understanding the customer learning in self-service technologies based on Self Directed Learning Theory .This study postulates that customer learning at Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) is mainly influenced by their motivation and self-management skills. This research contributes to theory by explaining the customer self-learning at SSTs and it helps practitioners to understand how customer learning takes place at SSTs and therefore to decide on what should be the focus of the organisation in designing customer communications aiming at providing a supportive learning experience to the customer. The fifth paper of the journal examined the images of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination as projected by Sri Lanka Tourism Promotional Bureau (SLTPB) through its official website, promotional brochures and advertisements. More importantly researchers have found Sri Lanka is promoted on eleven experiential themes on the website and other promotional materials, which mostly portray cognitive, functional and attribute-based images of the country.

The researchers have suggested the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotional Bureau (SLTPB) and other authorities related to Sri Lanka tourism to have a more thoughtful intervention to projecting holistic, affective and unique image for the country. The sixth paper of SLJMS looks at the impact of organisational culture on employee job satisfaction in state sector enterprises/ organisations in Sri Lanka. The results show that the three traits measuring organisational culture, namely; involvement, adaptability, and mission were positively related to employee job satisfaction. Moreover, the consistency trait didn’t show any significant impact on employee job satisfaction.

The adoption of ethical marketing practice in internationalising a local entrepreneurial organisation has been discussed in the seventh paper. The findings propose that both the entrepreneurial traits and institutional reasons led organisation to enter into the international market utilising ethical marketing practices.

This has reflected the theoretical merits of the study by depicting how the convergence of trait theory and new institutional perspective provides a better understanding of entrepreneurial internationalization. Furthermore, Ethical marketing has also contributed to the organization’s development of sustainable networking with multiple stakeholders. Moreover, the organization captured new customers using advocacy through ethical marketing. Therefore, these findings raise interesting themes regarding entrepreneurial internationalization through ethical marketing for future scholarly work

The eighth paper of Sri Lanka Journal of Management Studies (SLJMS) discusses how the library of the Open University has dealt with the pandemic situation and continued to provide services to its stakeholders.

The study identified the ways that could transmit the virus in the library and measures taken by the OUSL library such as reducing the number of users visiting the library, enhancing online inquiry service to provide a better service, introducing strict sanitary measures, keeping records of library users, changing book circulation process, a self-check-in kiosk, rearranging furniture to ensure social distancing, developing e-library editions etc. In addition, the staff of the library has been encouraged to work from home, enabling them to provide their respective services even at a time when the university is closed. And also, the library was able to develop an Open Education Resources (OER) collection because of the adoption of the Work from home concept. Besides this article argues this pandemic situation emphasized the importance of identifying and implementing new approaches by all institutions of the world to ensure continuous service for their stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of the institution.

The final paper identifies the overall perception of investors towards the Sri Lankan stock market as the ‘stock market image’. The researcher observes that the retail investors are in a firm notion that the CSE favors the large, sophisticated investors at the expense of small investors and they are more likely to perceive the CSE as an unethical, corrupted and gambling like venue. Nevertheless, the retail investors are somewhat positive about the stock market facilitators and the CSE’s ability to support wealth creation.

A segmentation of retail investors was carried out using stock market image dimensions by implementing the cluster analysis. These clusters were found to be significantly distinct from each other, revealing the fact that retail investors have a widely heterogeneous perception of the CSE ranging from positive to negative. Further, the analysis discloses that the stock market image is not significantly influenced by the investor characteristics viz., gender, education level, investment experience, age and financial literacy.

This time the book review of SLJMS is based on the piece of Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan titled “Marketing 4.0 Moving from Traditional to Digital”. The author reviews the book and explains how the book encapsulates the concepts, theories and practices with more examples from the real business world.

The editorial team invites all researchers, specialists and professionals in various disciplines in Management Studies to make a worthy contribution to the upcoming Issue of this journal.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please address them to nabey@ou.ac.lk. you can read all articles in new volume via http://repository.ou.ac.lk/ handle/94ousl/1949