ARS - 2006

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    An investigation of dividend policy behavior and information content of dividends in selected countries
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Peter, P.L.S.; Bamunuarachchi, G.K.
    Any company that essentially exists with the objective of maximizing the wealth of its shareholders is faced with the choice of either paying dividends now or reinvest now to pay later. This choice forms the background for the dividend policy decision that defines the time pattern of dividend payout. Numerous theoretical and empirical publications have kept dividend policy in its prominent status in corporate finance literature. Studies on dividend policy have been applied on companies listed in stock markets of both developed and developing countries. Employing meta-analysis that combines the results of several studies conducted on capital markets of a selected sample of countries, this paper analyses the dividend policy behavior of countries around the world in terms of dividend policy stability and the information content of dividend announcements. The paper concludes that the state of development of the country does have an impact on the dividend policy stability as companies in more matured markets in developed countries tend to maintain dividend stability although companies in emerging markets of developing countries have been unable to do so. On the other hand with respect to information content of dividend announcements it is evident that dividends have significant information content in all share markets and that on average all markets react negatively to surprise decreases in dividends which is more than proportionate to the positive reaction to surprise increases in dividends. Further it can be concluded that emerging markets take considerable time to fully incorporate information contained in dividend announcements while in mature markets it is less so. Mature markets tend to be more inline with the market efficiency hypothesis with respect to dividend announcements. As future research an investigation of dividend policy behavior and information content of dividends in a Sri Lankan context is to be conducted.
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    Identification of Critical Success Factors for Large Scale Information Systems Implementation in Sri Lanka
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Wijayanayake, W.M.J.I.; Vithanage, D.K.A.
    Information is so crucial for the today’s business organizations existence. Most of them are moving towards the concept of digital firm or information centric business. Information therefore has become an important asset thus managing them in a proper way is considered as a high priority. Information systems (IS) have emerged to fulfill the need of them. Large businesses have very complex information requirements thus require complex IS namely “large scale IS”. During the last few decades many companies acquire large scale IS to gain competitive advantage. But the failure rate of enterprise systems as studied by the researchers were almost 70% and most of this IS failures resulted from poor implementation mechanisms adopted by the implementers. However, there has been not much research done to identify the factors that affect the implementation failures of large scale information systems in Sri Lanka. Therefore, it is worth studying and identifying the factors that affect the successful implementation of large scale IS in Sri Lanka. This paper focuses on developing and testing a model for successful large scale IS implementation by identifying critical success factors. A pilot survey was conducted initially to identify the critical factors for implementation success. For this, well reputed local and multinational companies’ top IT executives were surveyed. The analysis of gathered data reveals that the factors affecting the implementation of large scale IS can be distinctly categories in to six perspectives namely Individual, Task, Technology, Structure, Process & Environmental factors. Further analysis on data shows that these factors can again be overlook in two dimensions, factors affecting the pre-implementation stage and implementation stage. These six distinct categories were put in to four phases according to there priority of consideration. This research is only a beginning of a research effort that ultimately aimed to derive a framework for implementing large scale IS in business organizations in Sri Lanka.
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    A Visual Management System for Universities - A CASE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KELANIYA, SRI LANKA
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Sirisena, H.; Hewawitanagamage, U.R.; Munasinghe, J.; Sakalasooriya, N.; Kalansooriya, J.
    Expansion of the boundaries of human knowledge is the key to enhance the quality of civilizations. Knowledge results in systems. Systems, in turn, make better environments where human beings could maintain high standards of life. We all are aware of the famous saying of Munidasa Kumarathunga, the renowned Grammarian of Sinhala language and patriotic, which states that "A nation cannot achieve success unless new discoveries are made." (alut alut de notanana jaatiya lova nonagi). When we were students we had to face lots of difficulties within the university premises, due to lack of a proper system of visual management. When we became members of the staff as academics and administrative officers we faced more difficulties in regard to above mentioned matter. We experienced this problem specially, when a new batch of students enters the university. Also, in the recent past various fee levying Postgraduate and Diploma courses have been introduced by our faculties and thousands of external students have been registered for undergraduate degrees at CODL. As such, we are in need of a systematic way to handle this mass who interacts with our various academic and administrative departments/branches in the University. When we undertook our Postgraduate Degrees in various foreign countries such as India, Russia, Germany and United Kingdom etc., we have been inspired by the visual management systems displayed by their universities. Certainly they are applying their knowledge to the betterment of their own society. These thoughts inspired us and as a result we have made an attempt to introduce a visual management system for our university. We hope that this kind of visual management system can be applied to any university.
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    The Study of the potentials of Folk-Media performance as a form of effective communication in community mobilization
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Jinadasa, W.W.M.P.K.
    The major function of the community development programme is to build up awareness and empower the community in order to achieve the objective. So far the most common methodology has been discussion, dialogue and lecture programme with the system of small-group communication. This type of communication is known as Praja Sabha, Sanwardhana Sabha, Grammiya Sabha…. Within development programmes. The historical origin of this system is also interesting. In the past in Sri Lanka we hear of the systematic use of Wel Sabha, Wariga Sabha,Wau Sabha… as a method of small group communication.This method has been in use in Sri Lanka over long period of time and today it seems appropriate that we should move in to a more effective alternative media of communication. It seems appropriate that we make use of features of Performance Arts which are available in the Traditional Folk- Media such as Vocalization, Instrumentalization, Dancing, and Dramatization which are prevalent in rituals and folk-lore. Development messages can be communicated effectively through the use of Kavikolaya, Adaberaya (Drumming), ritual forms of chanting, Panchaturya Vadanaya, Mask dancing and Devil Dancing. This type of presentation is more attractive as well as emotionally touches the audience. It also embodies variety of Rasa such as humor, Heroism, Erotic and Fantasy and variety of feelings. A broad change can be effected by the activization of Performance Arts in case of mobilization programmes. This could be made use of as a new methodology and a systematic approach in community participation. Such programmes can be organized with the participation of Traditional Folk-artists as well as enthusiastic youth of the areas. This pilot test was done covering 28 villages in the Rasnayakapura Divisional Secretary area. It was tested on 24 instances by Intermediate Technology Development Group (I.T.D.G)in the Community Governance Programme as a tool of Community Mobilization from 31st July 2004 to 1st July 2005.
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    Does the Colombo Stock Exchange Overreact?
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Pathirawasam, C.
    The efficient markets hypothesis has been the central theme in finance for nearly 35 years. Fama (1970) defined an efficient financial market as one in which security prices fully reflect the available information. However behavioralists such as Daniel, Hirshleifer and Subrahmayam (1998) Barberies, shleifer and Visny (1998), argue that financial markets are not efficient due to two investor biases These are over reaction and under reaction. De Bondt and Thaler (1985) have written several papers in which they argue that investors over react New York Stock Exchange. Particularly they find that stocks that are the most extreme losers in the past 3 – 5 year period have abnormally high returns in the subsequent 3 – 5 year period and vice versa. Hence they argue that investors over react for the extremely good news and extremely bad news. Objective of this study is to test whether the long term overreaction hypothesis is predictive in the Colombo Stock Exchange. This study uses monthly return data of common stocks for Colombo Stock Exchange for the period between January 1993 to December 2005. De Bondt and Thaler define the over reaction hypothesis as (~ | ) 0 1 < Wt t− E u F and (~ | ) 0 1 > Lt t− E u F . The first term explains that residual returns of high returns portfolio formed conditional upon the information set at t-1 are negative and the second term explains that residual returns of low returns portfolio formed conditional upon the information set at t-1 are positive. In this study t period has been taken as 24 months and 36 months. The residuals are estimated as it jt mt U~ = R − R . There is no risk adjustment except for movement of the market as a whole and the adjustment is identical for all the stocks. For every stock j cumulative excess returns (CUj) are computed for the prior 36 months and formed in to 5 portfolios. The highest CU portfolio is named as the Winner and the lowest CU portfolio as Loser. Then, for both Winner and Loser next 36 months Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) are computed. If a security’s return is missing more than 80% of the months with in a period that security is removed from the portfolio and the CARs in order to handle the thin trading problem. Findings of the study shows that past period losers are mostly generating positive returns in the subsequent 36 months and only 10 months show significant returns. However prior period winners reflect on average positive returns also in the next period and all of these returns are statistically significant after the 25th month. Therefore it can be concluded that there is no long term over reaction to new information at the Colombo Stock Exchange.
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    Impact of Banking Commissions on Sri Lankan Banking System
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Kumari, J.A.P.
    The transition from traditional feudal economy to a modern export - Import economy during the 1830s necessitated a modern banking sector in Sri Lanka. From the 1830s to 2005 Sri Lankan has experienced many changes in its banking sector and finally the country was able to cater to its economy with a well developed financial system. The objective of this paper is to analyses the role played by various government investigation commissions in bringing these development in the banking sector. From time to time Sri Lanka has appointed commissions to make recommendation about a particular section of the banking system or banking sector as a whole. Activities of three commissions appointed by the government, Pochkanawala Commission (1934), Exter Commission (1948) and the Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking (1992) formed the basis of this study Reports of the commissions, other related documents, historical records and parliamentary legislations were analyzed in order to evaluate the probable impact of the recommendations of these commissions. Findings of the study: 1.Bank of Ceylon and Agricultural and Industrial Credit Corporation were established on the recommendation of the First Banking Commission. 2. Central Bank of Sri Lanka was established based on the recommendations of the Exter Commission. 3. Recommendation of the Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking helped Sri Lanka to restructure Central Bank, other financial institutions, insurance industry, capital market and debt recovery legislations of Sri Lanka. 4. Some of the very important recommendations made by these commissions were not implemented 5. Reports of these commission provide an in depth analysis of the banking system of relevant periods.
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    A methodology for identifying ‘Web metrics’ for ‘Web analytics’
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Wickramarachchi, R.; Malavisooriya, L.M.
    The need for perusing sound business practices when adopting an organizational web strategy is highlighted by many authors. Measuring effectiveness of business activities is a standard practice of any organization. However, few organizations actively take steps to assess successfulness of their web strategy. The main reason for this is due to the lack of a standard approach to measure the effectiveness of web sites. Many authors have come up with different types of metrics (measurements) for measuring the effectiveness of web sites. Two common approaches identified are; user centric measurements which depend on consumer surveys and site centric measurements which depend on server logs. The latter approach is preferred by many organizations Software tools have also been developed for collecting and analyzing results from web metrics. But still Organizations are faced with problems of identifying appropriate metrics for their web site. Different sections of a web site have different functions and objectives. Therefore different metrics are needed to measure the effectiveness of different sections of a web site. Thus a formal methodology for identifying suitable web metrics for a particular web site is invaluable for measuring the effectiveness of web sites. The research proposes a methodology for identifying appropriate web metrics for measuring the effectiveness of a web site; based on the objectives and functionalities of the web site. A set of metrics have been identified by combining the findings of previous researches which are evaluated through expert opinions. These metrics are the input for methodology development where a stepwise approach is proposed to identify appropriate web metrics based on the functions of a particular web site.
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    Innovations in curriculum in English for Medicine
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Fernando, W.M.T.
    The Intensive Course in English at the Faculty of Medicine is designed to support the students to cope with their studies especially because many students find the medium switch challenging. The five components that were taught earlier were Reading , Writing, Speaking Listening and Translation .These were redefined under three components as Writing, Speaking and Listening due to the shortcomings observed in teaching/learning and evaluation processes. Writing component was expanded to include report , summary and review writing while Speaking contained a presentation of a research carried out within the course .These modifications in teaching/learning reflect a shift from the traditional audio- lingual method to a contextually based and experiential method and the communicative method1. Evaluation criteria was modified to enable students to coordinate research. Further, instead of grading students according to their levels of proficiency, mixed ability learning process was implemented . This is a novelty in the ELTU courses at the Faculty of Medicine. This paper intends to evaluate how the modifications foster students’ ability in thinking, generalizing and application of language in the delivery of professional service and also to identify the challenges faced by students as well as teachers in mixed ability teaching/learning process. It further hopes to identify ways of minimizing the number of failures in the Medical Course due to the lack of English Language proficiency. The paper concludes with the analysis of the stakeholders’ feedback . 1
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    Ants as Biological Indicators of Human Disturbance – evidence from Sinharaja forest and tea and rubber fields in Ratnapura district
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Dias, R.K.S.; Perera, K.A.M.
    Ants are a major group of insects in the forests as well as in agricultural fields in Sri Lanka. If the presence or absence of some ant taxa in disturbed areas differs from that of a forest reserve was investigated by sampling worker ants from tea and rubber fields in Godakawela and the primary and secondary forest regions in Sinharaja forest in September and October, 2005, respectively. Heavy rains prevailed during the sampling on both occasions. Honey baiting (25), soil sifting (10), hand collection (10) and litter sifting (10) during day time and pitfall trapping (10) at night along a 100 m transect were carried out in the forest while all of those methods except litter sifting were carried out in the tea and rubber fields. Depth of litter, soil moisture content and temperature and air temperature were also recorded. Worker ants belonging to seven subfamilies, Aneuretinae, Amblyoponinae, Cerapachyinae or Leptanillinae, Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, Myrmicinae and Ponerinae were recorded from the primary and secondary forest regions whereas five subfamilies, Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, Myrmicinae, Ponerinae and Pseudomyrmicinae were observed in both tea and rubber fields. Worker ants of subfamily Amblyoponinae were recorded from rubber fields but they were not observed in the tea fields. Thirty two morphospecies of ants from the primary forest region and twenty seven morphospecies from the secondary forest region were observed during this study. Thirty and thirty four morphospecies of ants were recorded from tea and rubber fields, respectively. Although Species Richness values did not show significant difference (p>0.05) for the four types of ecosystems, it was evident that Anoplolepis gracilipes (Jerdon), Diacamma rugosum Mayr, Meranoplus bicolor (Smith F.), Odontomachus simillimus Smith F., Oecophylla smaragdina Fabricius and Tetraponera rufonigra (Smith F.) could be considered as biological indicators of disturbance as they were restricted to tea and rubber fields. Also, Aneuretus simoni Emery, Technomyrmex bicolor Emery, Anochetus sp. and Leptogenys spp. were restricted to the two types of forest regions but further research would be carried out to confirm these observations.
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    Archaeological Heritage in Biyagama Division
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Gunawardhana, P.; Namalgamuwa, H.; Bandara, N.; Wijesuriya, D.; Saldin, M.; Mahoney, T.
    Archaeological heritage of the Kelaniya region goes back to the Proto-historic times. The transitional phase from the Mesolithic culture of the Pre-historic period to the Protohistoric or Early Iron Age is revealed in the region. The Proto-historic period in Sri Lanka is believed to be in 1000 BC (Senaviratne, 1985). The black and red ware found from the Pilapitiya, draws our attention to the fact that the Kelani valley region has played a key role during this period. According to the chronicles, Kelaniya had been an organized city and remained a remarkable strategic point from the 3 rd century BC. As ancient Sri Lanka was strategically located on the trade routes between south –East Asia and west Asia, it is suggested that Kalyani or Kalyani pattanam might have functioned as a main sea port of the city where many traders lived and engaged in the international trade. However, due to the rapid development of the socio-economic sector in the country, it tended to change the cultural landscape and also the contemporary appearance of the buildings, monuments and sites. For the investigation of this region as an initial stage, we used the unsystematic survey method which has identified about one hundred thirty seven archaeological heritage sites (Gunawardhana, 2006). The aim of this paper is to discuss the archaeological heritage of Biyagama division and will finish addressing the concepts of archaeological heritage of this environment.
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    Morphometric differences observed between two populations of Clarias brachysoma, an endemic, edible freshwater fish of Sri Lanka
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Gunawardane, N.D.P.; Hettiarachchi, M.
    Clarias brachysoma is an endemic, edible, freshwater fish found in Sri Lanka. Several species of Clarias in other parts of the world are considered as suitable candidates for aquaculture. Clarias brachysoma also is a popular edible fish, however, it is not cultured in Sri Lanka mainly due to unavailability of seed for stocking. In trying to develop a breeding programme for Clarias brachysoma, preliminary studies were carried out to find out the size at maturity in order to select a suitable broodstock. Here, some significant morphometric differences were observed in samples of Clarias brachysoma collected from two river basins of Sri Lanka. Samples of fish were obtained from Madu Ganga River Basin (Balapitiya) and Dadugam Oya River Basin (JaEla) in December 2005 to July 2006 and were maintained separately. Each fish in each sample was euthansiated following the standard procedure. Before observing the gonads for maturity, morphometric and meristic characteristics such as length measurements of the body parts and ray counts of fins were recorded for each individual. All the data from two sets of fish samples were tested for normality and then were compared using two sample T-Test and Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Significant differences of the measurements of body weight, total length, standard length, width of the body, length of the caudal fin, head measurements such as pre-dorsal length, head shield length, length of barbles and height of the body were observed for the two samples (P< 0.05). Significant differences were not recorded for meristic data (P> 0.05). However the clear separations were obtained from the PCA score plot of the first two principal component axes. Calculated length weight relationships were also different from each other for the two sets of samples. In the present analysis of morphometric data it clearly indicated that there were significant morphological differences in the two sets of samples of Clarias brachysoma collected from Madu Ganga River Basin and Dadugam Oya River Basin. It would be interesting to carry out DNA analysis to see whether the morphological differences are due to heritable dissimilarities.
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    Perceived usefulness of training and development activities among women managers
    (University of Kelaniya, 2006) Shamil, M.M.M.
    This research examines the participation of women managers in Sri Lanka in various training and development activities during their career and how they perceive the usefulness of such training and development activities. Objectives of this research are: to identify most common training and development activities that women managers in Sri Lankan have participated; to identify most useful training and development activities according to women managers in Sri Lankan; and to see the nature of correlation between the number of training and development activities participated by women managers in Sri Lankan and their perceived usefulness. The two measures originally developed by Greenhaus et al. (1990) was used by Burke et al. (1998) to measure the number of training and development activities participated by Filipino managerial women and their perceived usefulness (Burke et al. 1998). The two measures are participation and usefulness (Burke et al. 1998). Respondents were asked to indicate their participation on 13 different training and development activities and a five point scale ranging from extremely useless = 1 to extremely useful = 5 was used to measure the perceived usefulness of such activities (Burke et al. 1998). A questionnaire was developed using the above training and development activities and usefulness scale. The sample selected for this study includes 100 women managers in Sri Lanka who are employed in the private sector and residing in the western province of Sri Lanka. The sample of 100 Sri Lankan women managers consists of 50 women managers from the financial services sector and 50 women managers from the manufacturing sector. A similar study carried out in Canada have found that a positive correlation exists between the number of activities participated and their mean perceived usefulness Burke et al. (1998). Based on this the following hypothesis was developed: a positive correlation exists between the number of activities participated by women managers in Sri Lankan and their mean perceived usefulness. The study carried out among Filipino managerial women found that a negative correlation exists between two variables and this finding deviated from the Canadian experience where there was a positive correlation between the variables (Burke et al 1998). The research study found that a positive correlation exists among the women managers in Sri Lanka.