The objectives of the study were to investigate 1) whether paternalistic leadership affects exploitative and exploratory innovation, and 2) whether intrinsic motivation and environmental dynamism moderate the direct effects of paternalistic leadership on exploitative and exploratory innovation. The study was conducted in Sri Lanka by taking a sample of respondents from the information technology sector. The results indicate a notable distinction between the factors driving exploitative and exploratory innovation. Both types of innovations are significantly affected by paternalistic leadership. However, it has a positive influence on exploitation while it has a negative influence on exploration. Intrinsic motivation significantly predicts only the exploratory innovation while environmental dynamism significantly predicts only the exploitative innovation. This divergence can be explained by the inherent differences in the nature of these two types of innovation. Overall, this research advances theoretical understanding and provides practical guidance.

The purpose of the study was to investigate factors affecting the career satisfaction of vendors’ employees who perform project tasks on-site at clients’ owned facilities for several years as part of project delivery in Sri Lanka. The study identified six factors that influence the career satisfaction of these employees, namely, work content, financial rewards and other gains, work relationships, supervisor support, general working conditions, and opportunities experienced due to being stationed at clients’ firms. Overall, the study context is novel and the findings make contributions to the advancement of project management literature and practice.

Lean Practices have been implemented by private hospitals to get counterproductive solutions for reducing costs and gaining a competitive advantage. This research aims to examine the significance of lean practices on competitive advantage in the Sri Lankan private hospital sector to fill the knowledge gap. This research used a quantitative approach in which primary data was collected through a questionnaire-based survey and an analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling using the SmartPLS software. The research reveals the level of impact of lean practices, 5S, Kaizen, Kanban, and Just in Time in achieving a competitive advantage in the private hospital sector. Studies have demonstrated a significant impact of adopting the Just in Time approach in comparison to other established lean practices within the Sri Lankan private hospital sector, highlighting its unique and valuable contribution for health services. Researchers demonstrated when comparing Just in Time with other chosen lean practices for the study from the perspective of supply chain professionals, Just in Time contributes significantly to the competitive advantage of the Sri Lankan private hospital sector.

The goal of this research is to test the mediating effect of product symbolism on the relationship between conspicuous consumption and social identity formation in the branded clothing sector of young adults. Young adults between the ages of 20-35 who wear branded clothes in Sri Lanka were considered the target population. The data was collected through a survey to find answers to the identified research questions through a quantitative approach. The Snowball sampling method was used as the sampling method for this study. The Sobel Test was carried out using an online calculator to measure the statistical significance of the mediation. The results showed that the effect of conspicuous consumption on social identity formation mediated through product symbolism could be judged as statistically significant. The findings can help with market segmentation and brand positioning. Knowing these symbolic value attachments to branded clothes, marketers can create their marketing mix strategies to provide solutions for self-image enhancement and sustainable competitive advantage from both consumer and company points of view.

Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report of the Bank Negara Malaysia reported that household debt grew by 5.4% to RM1.09 trillion from a year earlier. Notably, households merely borrow or use credit for pur-chasing in order to smoothen their consumption. Less secure and vulnerable current, and retirement stages would be the result among public employees in Malaysia due to high household debts. Enhancing trend of better financial management practices is essential, especially for working employees due to the increased levels of existing personal indebtedness, and increasing focus on personal responsibility for financial planning among them. Nowadays, employee’s role in managing their finances is becoming complex due to experiencing with the complexity of financial commodities in the marketplace. Therefore, studying of the determinants of employees’ financial well-being (FWB) among employees in Malaysia is the major objective of this research. The sample of 590 employees in the public sector from four states was selected by applying multi stage sampling technique. The data gathering was accomplished using a self-administered questionnaire. According to the re-gression analysis, contribution of the variables to the model was 32.3%. Money attitude, financial practices, self-efficacy, and emotion coping had conspicuous contribution to FWB, while financial practices were identified as the key performing aspect to FWB. The findings of this study are beneficial to the government, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to create a comprehensive approach specially to advance the living standards, and enhance the FWB of the lower-household income cluster of employees. More comprehension about the determinants of FWB plays a vital role to support workers to equip with financial prudence, and in the long-run would minimize the rate of Malaysian workers with financial difficulties.

his paper aims to investigate the effect of goal impediment, privacy concern, perceived personalization on the online add avoidance behavior. This task is accomplished through the negative experi-ence. The primary objective of the study is to identify the effects the said issues in Sri Lanka. The study is designed as a cross sectional study where the data was collected using a questionnaire and the sample size was 384. Collected data was analyzed through structural equation method in AMOS 22. All the hypotheses were supported by data. Therefore, it was concluded that goal impediment, privacy concern, perceived personalization had significant impacts on negative experience and negative experience had a significant impact on the online add avoidance behavior.

Clustering is one of the most common unsupervised data mining classification techniques for splitting objects into a set of meaningful groups. However, the traditional k-means algorithm is not applicable to retrieve useful information / clusters, particularly when there is an overwhelming growth of multidimensional data. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a new strategy to determine the optimal number of clusters. To improve the clustering task on high dimensional data sets, the distance based k-means algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithm is tested using eighteen sets of normal and non-normal multivariate simulation data under various combinations. Evidence gathered from the simulation reveal that the proposed algorithm is capable of identifying the exact number of clusters.

This study examines the emotional intelligence (EI) of nurses by differentiating inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions, and explores the measures taken by them to maintain emotional stability. Further, it investigates the relationship of demographic factors (age, gender and year of experience) of nurses with their emotional stability. The case organization is a well performing private hospital located closer to the metropolitan city. Study collects data through both quantitative (survey) and qualitative means (discussion, observation, and interviews) using a sample of 40 nurses selected conveniently from different ranks. The study finds that the level of EI of nurses in case hospital is slightly high, and their inter-personal skills are higher than intra-personal skills. They maintain emotional stability by means of emotion gaps, emotional shifts and sharing. Findings suggest that both inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions of EI will not be equally important for nurses in dealing with patients, and the level of EI required in the job is not equal among different ranks of nurses.