Helan Ramya Gamage

Value driven Asiatic entrepreneurship: South Asian way of ethical entrepreneurship and sustainability

The implication of ethics to business is becoming crucial to the shaping and reshaping of social and human systems including business, social and ecological sustainability in the South Asian context. This paper is to explore this phenomenon and its present practices within the Asian business context, with special focus on Sri Lanka. Using mixed methodology, 500 entrepreneurs were approached, out of which only 333 responded. In-depth interviews were carried out with five organisations: their entrepreneurs, workers and an external party. The outcome indicates that entrepreneurs prefer practicing business rules. On the contrary to quantitative data, the qualitative facts suggested that entrepreneurs prefer engaging in behavioural pattern, which maximises their self-interests. The study also revealed that the entrepreneurial focus is moving towards a new era of business processing, i.e., re-manufacturing, recycling and re-using. These trends are highly influential and business ethics play a key role in driving them in the future.

Entrepreneurial drive beyond the need for achievement: a point of difference in South Asian entrepreneurial drive, inspiration and motivation

Entrepreneurial drive or aspiration is known as entrepreneurial motivation (EM) which is fundamental to entrepreneurial activities and a central theme of the literature since the inception and evolution of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship models that are in existence in South Asia are often based on the western ideological assumptions of the need for achievement (N-Ach) and personality trait theory. Research on how socio-cultural factors influence EM in the South Asian context, where entrepreneurs are fashioned with unique social means of existence, is indispensable. The exploratory nature of this socio-culture-based study embraces the fundamental philosophy of subjectivism. A qualitative research methodology and inductive holistic case study approach including grounded theory analysis, allowed context sensitive realities of EM in Sri Lanka to emerge. Findings of this study suggest that EM in Sri Lanka is rooted not only in a need for individual achievement, but also in the conscious or unconscious need to satisfy a sense of social intimacy. Finally, this study recommends that if people matter in entrepreneurship, then the cultural context of people must have an impact on EM in the South Asian societies.

Idiosyncrasies of taking risk: a case of a South-Asian context

Risk taking is fundamental to entrepreneurial activities and a central theme of the entrepreneurship literature. However, research on the risk taking propensity of entrepreneurs has met with virtually no empirical evidence on how socio-cultural factors influence on taking entrepreneurial risk in the context of South Asia where entrepreneurs consistently face challenges of high uncertainty due to socio-cultural and politico-economic complexity and instability. Purpose of this paper is to address this paradox by examining entrepreneurial risk through the lenses of socio-cultural, politico-economic and decision making. Given the self-evident that nature of complexity, irrationality and uncertainty in this context, a sophisticated exploration of entrepreneurial social reality of risk taking and management requires the fundamental philosophy of subjectivism and therefore this study adopts qualitative inductive case study methods in a sample of Sri Lankan entrepreneurs. The study found that entrepreneurs do indeed use their social and cultural understanding to a great extent in their decision making.

South-Asian Way of Taking Entrepreneurial Risk

This paper attempts to address the context sensitive paradox by examining entrepreneurial risk (ER) through the lens of social, cultural, political and economic and decision making. Entrepreneurial social reality of risk taking and management requires the fundamental philosophy of subjectivism and utilizes qualitative inductive case study method. The research data indicate that entrepreneurs do indeed use their social wisdom and cultural understanding more in their decision making. These findings provide a new perspective for understanding how entrepreneurs deal with the unjustifiable amount of risk associated with the complexity of indigenous society and culture in the South Asian context, which challenges the western ideologies and practices of ER.

Inquisitiveness in Organisational Life: Finding Things in Unusual Places

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore organizational approaches to creativity and innovation. This makes organization more competitive and sustainable in complex world of business. In this study, we review existing literature on creativity and innovation, and provide an account on the state of the art. Organizational culture and management strategy nurture creativity and innovation is characterized by organizational leadership, strategies, policies, processes, systems and structure. The culture of organization should promote and practice harmony and tolerance by giving employees the freedom to take risks and explore new ideas and allocating considerable amount of time for their personal experiments within the organization.

Easy e-money syndrome: challenges of risk management in credit card industry in Sri Lanka

The concept of plastic money as a value of the currency is transferred from the credit of the buyer or the beneficiary through cyber space. The volume of utilizing credit cards and the risk incurred, has considerably increased due to certain vulnerabilities in the credit card industry in Sri Lanka. The research paper aims at identifying the challenges in the Sri Lankan credit card system through quantitative and qualitative approaches of research methodology. This paper has ascertained that credit card discrepancies are mainly due to the arrival of the concept of credit cards without proper IT literacy, institutional frame work, infrastructure and legal safeguards. The study recommends measures to minimize the perceived challenges of the credit card risk management by giving better awareness to the stakeholders about credit card frauds and imposing the required legal system which has to go beyond the existing British legal system used in Sri Lanka.

Reflection of Ethicality in Business Practices: Perspectives of Sri Lankan Entrepreneurs

It is evident that value is a central component that guides human activity systems and ethical decision making. Our study suggests that entrepreneurs are governed through the set of values that they internalize over the years. Hence over the years entrepreneurial values shape the nature of business practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of ethical practices that shape entrepreneurialism in Sri Lanka. Ethical practices of business are analyzed based on three moral approaches: egoist ethicality; utilitarian ethicality; and deontological ethicality. Mixed methodology was employed to capture the holistic nature of interaction between values and entrepreneurial performance. Out of 500 entrepreneurs summoned for the survey, only 333 responded, of which 20 entrepreneurs were interviewed. Data confirmed that entrepreneurs who possess entrepreneurial values at a low level and the least mean scores were reported against the egoistic work climate. This shows that the pattern of the majority of entrepreneurs is based on a deontological type of ethicality rather than other types of ethicalities.