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The objective of this paper is to identify the challenges of implementing and adopting an effective ERM system and to suggest alternative strategies that could be pursued as countermeasures to those challenges. This study is based on survey data gathered from 379 respondents representing 129 companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange of Sri Lanka. This study found that the lack of availability of information to make risk-based decisions; the need to ensure that all decisions are made within the organization’s risk tolerance level, and the lack of top management support for ERM implementation; are the most influencing challenges for business organizations that obstruct ERM effectiveness. This study suggests that organizations should promote a good corporate culture that fosters ERM supportive internal environment. It is also suggested that the support of the top management and their commitment to being corporative with the firms’ ERM function without making ERM is the sole responsibility of the finance people. Further, it is suggested that organizations have a designated position dedicated to overseeing the ERM function and providing executive leadership for its effective implementation.

There is a high expectation that urban-rural linkage in general and the function of small towns, in particular, has a great role in livelihood diversification and poverty reduction in rural areas than sectoral development. However, the previous empirical studies give little attention to the function of small towns and the livelihood diversification of rural communities. We analyze the function of a small town and participating in non-farm economic activities from a rural farm household survey of 371 farmer household heads in Ethiopia. The data was analyzed using a logistic regression model and statistical description. The study found that rural households who have road access have likely participated in none-farm activities and it has positive and significant effects. Education and FHH has also a significant relationship with the function of a small town. Distance from the small town has a significant and positive impact on the non-farm economic activities of rural communities. Overall, benefits from the function of small towns such as the provision of road access, agricultural extension, financial credit services, administrative services, educational and health services are some of the provisions of a small town. Therefore, a comprehensive integrated urban-rural linkage strategy could empower rural farm smallholders to diversify their livelihoods through strengthening small town functions is mandatory. The role of small towns needs to be integrated into rural communities. Participate in livelihood diversification strategies and achieve sustainable development goals by 2030 at large. 

As of 2020, the retail sector faced an existential challenge with rapid changes as one of the many sectors. The recent impact was noted due to the present COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world. Most customers have moved on with e-commerce platforms, while traditional customers still struggle with in-store shopping. This study was specifically aimed at the conventional customers who do in-store shopping in complexes. The objective of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of the demographic factors on post-purchase regret at malls. Two factors affecting post-purchase regret, namely, the number of alternatives forgone and the return process experience, were considered. Accordingly, the moderating effects of demographic factors of consumers who have purchased something from a shopping mall during the past two years were targeted for this. By conducting an online survey using a structured questionnaire, 383 responses were collected. Through the moderation effect analysis, the consumer career was identified as moderating variable for this relationship. The rest of the demographic factors considered for this study did not significantly moderate this relationship. The findings suggest that the number of alternatives in showcase must be limited with a sense of marketing. Further, the staff at the shop must provide proper guidance on the return process and related service by identifying loyal and non-loyal customers’ careers and lifestyles.

Nowadays, the non-farm sector gives more attention and high expectations in reducing poverty in sub-Saharan African. Because participation of farm households in the none-farm sector out of their farm activities will play a great role to reduce poverty. Cross-sectional data were used to collect data in 2020 from farm household heads of 371 respondents with the mixed methodology to investigate the effect of demographic factors in none/off-farm economic activities on gender perspective in Ethiopia. In this study, we employ a Logistic regression model to explore the probabilities of household heads' participation in none/off-farm economic activities out of their farm. The result indicated, age and education level have a positive effect and statistically significant effect on increasing non-farm activities with the coefficients of 3.406, 1.956 respectively, confirmed that these variables should take into account in policy development to increase their impact on livelihood diversification. And Gender has a negatively significant on livelihood diversification. FHH is more participants in non-farm economic activities than MHH. Credit access does not contribute to increasing livelihood diversification instead; it contributes to agricultural specialization, not diversification. Surprisingly, family size has insignificant results in non-farm economic activities The outcome indicated it has its implications for the Ethiopian policy and strategy. The government should give more attention to the progressive aspects of non-farm economic activities to eradicate poverty. Whereas, decreasing its negative impact on poorer households by controlling obstacles of non-farm activities.

The banking sector in Sri Lanka has been portrayed by significant changes in the past few decades. It is widely perceived that competition in the Sri Lankan banking sector has improved since the introduction of the financial sector reforms in the 1990s. By applying Panzar-Rosse (PR) approach to test the degree of competitiveness, this paper assesses the validity of this claim in the context of the Sri Lankan banking sector during 1996-2018. The sample covers a broader set of bank-level panel data of the whole commercial banking sector which comprised of 25 licensed commercial banks. The EGLS procedure applied in this study revealed that during the stated period, the Sri Lankan banking sector had been moderately competitive.  Further analysis also disclosed that there is no significant difference between the state-owned banks and private banks regarding their degree of competitiveness, as well as their temporal dynamics. Another striking observation revealed in this analysis is the lower level of competitiveness among foreign banks compared to the competitiveness of local banks. The Competitiveness of the Sri Lankan banking sector however is characterized by non-price competition, as on many occasions the interest rate depends on government policies. Hence, this study provides new insight into the nature of financial sector competitiveness in underdeveloped countries. The outcome of the research implies the necessity of attempts of all banks towards re-aligning their strategies to attract and retain customers. This would be the major challenge that banks face in accomplishing a higher level of competition in the banking industry in the future.   

Despite core banking, banks also engage in off-balance-sheet (OBS) market activities. In many developed banking industries, OBS activities have grown to be significant during the last two decades. This paper provides rather scarce evidence on the competitiveness among banks for OBS activities and its impact on the degree of banking sector competition in Sri Lanka. Panzar-Ross H statistic approach employing in this study to estimate bank competition used a comprehensive set of bank-level data of the whole commercial banking sector in Sri Lanka covering the period 1996-2018. The first-round analysis of the study uncovers substantial differences among banks concerning the OBS activities. EGLS panel estimation procedure applied in this study provides evidence for a lower level of competitiveness among Sri Lankan banks for OBS activities. More interestingly, the findings further reveal that the degree of competitiveness for OBS activities has a significant positive impact on the overall competitiveness of the banking sector in Sri Lanka.  These results suggest banking institutions re-visit their business models with greater emphasis on nonconventional banking activities in enhancing bank-level efficiency and hence positively contributing to the overall competitiveness of the banking sector.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) has gained an increased attention during the recent past as an integrated approach to manage risk for creating and preserving firm value. The objective of this study is to explore and empirically verify as to whether the adoption of the ERM has an impact on the firm performance. This study uses both primary and secondary data pertaining to 129 companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange under the banking & finance, insurance, diversified, manufacturing, food and beverage and chemical and pharmaceutical sectors. Primary and secondary data are collected by distributing a survey questionnaire and analyzing the published financial statements of the observing companies. Researcher adopts ERM integrated framework suggested by the committee of sponsoring organization (COSO) of the Treadway Commission of the USA to assess the value relevance of ERM and uses return on equity (ROE) as a proxy to measure the firm performance. This study finds, except for control activities, none of the key ERM functions, suggested by the COSO’s ERM integrated framework, has a significant impact on the performance of listed companies. Internal environment, objective setting, and information & communication indicated a weak positive impact on the firm performance. Nevertheless, none of those impacts were statistically significant. Empirical evidence reveals that firms’ risk responding strategies have no impact on the performance. Surprisingly, monitoring of ERM functions has weak negative, but not significant, impact on the firm performance. These findings are contradictory with the theoretical expectation that the adoption of ERM practices has a positive impact on firm performance as confirmed by the prior researchers.

With the technological advancements in the past few years in the mobile telecommunication industry, customer requirements and their behavioral patterns changed a lot. Implications of two of most popular such technological approaches which are independent from the service provider were discussed in this paper.  Usually, firms have identified the value of maintaining a higher level of switching barriers since it is one kind of successful strategic aspects in mobile telecommunication. But, the importance of these strategies was challenged with the adoptions of new technologies. Therefore, to study its’ implication, data set was obtained by conducting a survey from randomly select mobile subscribers in Sri Lanka. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, t-test and factorial ANOVA test were used for the data analysis purpose. According to the analysis, it is revealed that these two technological advancements are weakened the level of switching barriers significantly. It may allow subscribers to switch service providers easily. On the other hand, subscribers with higher relationship age are having the highest switching barrier level even though they are users of those new technologies. But a significant difference among users and non-users has been identified through the study. Thus, policy makers are required to come up with new strategies to retain those subscribers within the network.