As the Editors-in-Chief of Vidyodaya Journal of Management (VJM), Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, it is our pleasure to publish the Volume 7, Issue II of the Journal. This issue contains eight research papers.
The research papers included in this issue are covering areas of Transformational Leadership, Stock Price Reaction, Environmental Management Accounting Practices, Intellectual Property a Common Good to Combat Global Pandemics and the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), Spiritual and Entrepreneurial Orientation, Buddhist Teachings and Spirituality, Inflation Targeting Monetary Policy Framework and a systematic literature review paper on Management Practices and Workplace Accommodation for Persons with Disabilities.
Examining the impact of transformational leadership on employee performance in the context of porcelain manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka is the focus of the first paper. The findings revealed that transformational leadership has a positive impact on employee performance and employee engagement and also employee engagement has a positive impact on employee performance. Importantly, employee engagement mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee performance.
Second paper has identified the overall impact of a stock split announcement on stock prices considering 88 annual stock splits during the ten years period ranging from 2009 to 2019 of the listed companies in the Colombo Stock Exchange. The graphical analysis and the t-statistics indicated that the majority of stock splits were negative than positive with a significant t-value at 5% by indicating that the information regarding the stock splits have not been absorbed efficiently by the market because the market reactions before and after the date of the split announcement were significant at 5%, although the average abnormal return got a quick reaction to the announcement.
The third research paper is an exploratory study to identify the factors that have influenced a manufacturer in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka to adopt and implement EMAPs with the perspective of the New Institutional Sociology Theory. One of the leading manufacturing companies in the apparel industry was selected as the case study. It was found that coercive isomorphism was the most significant factor whereas the least influential factor was the normative isomorphism on the adoption and the implementation of the EMAPs in the organization. Moreover, the study found some reasons behind the adoption of more Physical EMAPs (PEMAPs) than the Monetary EMAPs (MEMAPs) by the organization.
The COVID-19 outbreak has created a global race for research into a vaccine, diagnostic and therapeutic. In this context, intellectual property rights play a prominent role in incentivizing COVID-19 vaccines. The fourth research paper critically analyzed the prospects that COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) would offer low and middle-income countries to overcome intellectual property rights related barriers and resource constraints in accessing the COVID-19 vaccine and reflect on how to tackle Big Pharma and some high-income countries’ influences on the effective functioning of C-TAP.
Fifth paper is focused on to examine the nature of female entrepreneurs’ religious behaviour and how Buddhist teachings and spirituality influence female entrepreneurs’ business decisions throughout start-ups and the ongoing business operations. Since Buddhism is a vast literature, the study focuses mainly on the five precepts. Results revealed that Buddhist female entrepreneurs’ business decisions are influenced by their religious teachings, especially the five precepts and religious spirituality.
The Entrepreneurial Orientation of decision-makers is recognized as a key driver in the entrepreneurship literature that propels firms to act ‘autonomously’, ‘innovate’, ‘take risks’, and be ‘proactive’ relative to marketplace opportunities. The sixth paper argues that spirituality fortifies entrepreneurs’ commitment to developing sustainable business entities, by empowering firms to be adaptable and creating a pro-social business model with a sense of interconnection with the community and natural ecosystem. The paper theorizes how a spiritually driven entrepreneurial orientation will lead to sustainable business ventures that focus on people, profit, and the planet. A spiritually oriented entrepreneur would emphasize on the ethics, principles, virtues, values, and be sensitive to emotions, which will lead to taking proactive actions. The study asserts that entrepreneurs must develop the spiritual maturity to create the right balance of entrepreneurial orientation dimensions, thus leading to creating sustainable organizations.
Inflation Targeting Monetary Policy Framework, in which context it has become a matter of debate whether inflation or economic growth is driven by monetary expansions, which is strongly proved through the economic theories forwarded by Karl Marx, Irvin Fisher and Friedman. Seventh paper examines the relationship between money supply and economic growth under a broad phenomenon by utilizing 39 countries with inflation targeting policies in action. The utilized Panel Autoregressive Distribution Lag (ARDL) model forwarded the results suggesting that there is a significant negative relationship between the economic growth and money supply in the long run while no relationship has been observed in the short run. The study has contributed vastly to the academic rigor through the comprehensive analysis conducted by employing the ARDL model about the short and long run impact of money supply over the economic growth rates.
The eighth paper is a review paper which explores the question how various scholars approached the social, political and legal issues arise out of low employment rate of the persons with disabilities and expressed their views on how to solve them. Since a systematic literature review has not been conducted in Sri Lanka on this topic, to answer the aforesaid research problem, the author evaluated multiple scholarly approaches towards the barriers affecting human resource practices and workplace accommodation for persons with disabilities and explore solutions available in the existing literature to resolve such issues. Results of this research are produced by collecting and synthesizing previous research for advancing knowledge and facilitating theory development.
Finally, we are grateful for the contribution of authors, reviewers, editorial board and the publisher for their continuous support in publishing of another volume and look forward to obtaining their valuable scholarly contribution for the upcoming volumes as well.
Dr. L. A. Pavithra Madhuwanthi and Dr. Vilani Sachitra
University of Sri Jayewardenepura