Small Firm Behaviour in Sri Lanka

This paper investigates the behaviour of small firms in Sri Lanka using a countrywide cross-sectional survey. The 73 responding firms provide information on whether certain variables: the firm's utilisation of assets; labour; technology; family savings; and access to bank financing, vary with four firm-specific factors: industry; family ownership; size; and whether the firm's manager was also an owner of the firm. Sampled small firms are mostly family owned and owner managed although a significant number of family owned firms are managed by non-family managers. Most firm's under-utilise assets, use existing rather than the latest technology, and are reliant upon family savings. Statistical analysis provides evidence of significant cross-sectional variation in small firm practice. The results are explained in terms of the cost of acquiring new technology, asymmetries and opacity in financial information, and the non-value maximising behaviour of firm owners who are also firm managers.     

Doing business in Malaysia

The importance of international trade to the Malaysian economy can hardly be exaggerated. Trade represents a lifeline for the Malaysian economy. Export‐oriented industrialization in the 1990s converted the labor‐surplus economy into a labor‐deficit one and then back to a labor‐surplus one in 2000 and beyond. The incidence of poverty has fallen by half since the early 1980s. Trade has also contributed much to the structural transformation and modernization of the economy. Had Malaysia been a closed economy, Malaysia would have shared the same fate as some other less developed countries that remain economically backward. Its external trade policy has paved the way for greater inflows of foreign direct investment, as foreign direct investors are not so much interested in serving the small domestic market as serving the vast external market. The large inflows of foreign direct investment have conferred positive effects on the domestic economy. This has meant significant improvements in the overall living standards for the Malaysians. Internationalization has provided employment opportunities, thereby raising their living standards through higher and more stable earnings. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Doing business in Switzerland

Situated at the crossroads of Europe, Switzerland is an ideal example of a successful multicultural and multilingual society living in a harmonized way. This article provides a comprehensive review of Switzerland's historical development, political structure, economy, investment, and foreign trade environment. It aims at being a useful source of information for foreign businessmen and investors interested in doing business in Switzerland, one of the most advantageous business locations in Europe. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Doing business in Vietnam

This article examines the opportunities and challenges of doing business in Vietnam. We focus on the seven‐year development process of the venture capital industry in Vietnam as an indicator of the long‐term process of creating and managing business investments there. Although there are many lucrative business opportunities in Vietnam, there are also significant challenges that must be carefully analyzed before making an investment. Challenges include finding quality investments, long payback periods, a lengthy and expensive process to develop a management team, and significant misunderstandings because of cultural differences between Western and Vietnamese investors. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Doing business in Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest market in the Arabian Gulf region and, despite current political and economic uncertainties, offers investors and exporters many opportunities in a wide variety of business sectors. Key factors driving economic policy include the desire to reduce the dependence on oil, and the need to provide jobs, housing, and services to citizens in a time of rapid population growth. The foreign investment law of 2000 significantly changed the rules for foreign investors, permitting 100% ownership of projects. There is a streamlined foreign investment application process with various investment incentives. Important policies are privatization, economic diversification (such as the development of a tourism sector), and the education and training of Saudi workers. Although lifestyle in the kingdom is ultramodern and high‐tech, Saudi Arabia is an extremely conservative country and many of its citizens desire to preserve their religious values and ancient traditions. The Saudi culture is influenced by two dimensions: Islam and the Bedouin tradition. Foreign executives doing business in Saudi Arabia must be prepared to conduct thorough preliminary research, visit the kingdom regularly, show genuine concern for Saudi development goals and culture, be patient in business negotiations, and adapt carefully to the Saudi environment. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Doing business in South Africa

This survey of the South African business environment outlines the major transformations the country has experienced since 1994. The economy has been restructured, which enhanced fiscal and monetary discipline as well as domestic and global competitiveness. The general business climate has been improved, but continued progress requires (1) prioritization of social issues such as HIV/AIDS, employment, and crime and (2) accelerated privatization, market reforms, and clarity about black economic empowerment. Such changes may stimulate inflation‐rate reduction, foreign exchange stability, and an increase in foreign direct investment. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Social marketing to eliminate leprosy in Sri Lanka

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease which, if untreated, can lead to permanent and progressive nerve damage and thus to deformities of the limbs, eyes, and face. People with leprosy have long been ostracized by society. The clinical signs of leprosy include insensitive skin lesions and thickened peripheral nerves. Untreated infectious leprosy cases are the main source of infection, transmitting the disease through nasal secretions. People with low cell-mediated immunity are at risk of developing clinically active leprosy irrespective of gender, age, or social class. The World Health Organization (WHO) has, since 1982, recommended multiple drug therapy (MDT) against leprosy, an approach capable of curing the disease within 1 year and interrupting its transmission. According to WHO, leprosy is currently a public health problem in 55 countries and more than 20% of the estimated 1.15 million cases of leprosy worldwide remain undetected. Although Sri Lanka was the first country in South Asia to provide MDT to all registered leprosy patients, first making it available in 1984, the disease continues to be transmitted due to the large number of undetected cases in the country. An ongoing social marketing program was therefore launched in 1990 by the local health ministry and the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development to eliminate leprosy from Sri Lanka. The program encourages people with suspicious skin lesions to seek diagnosis and care, teaches health care providers to recognize leprosy and refer cases for treatment, and helps the general public to understand that leprosy is just a normal disease. The socially marketed product is MDT, provided free-of-charge by the Novartis Foundation to all leprosy patients.     

After‐sales services of home appliances: evidence from Sri Lanka

The provision of after‐sales services is considered as a source of product differentiation leading to competitive advantage of a firm. As a consequence, there is a need of monitoring and measuring the activities of after‐sales service departments to ensure that the objectives of their existence are satisfied. Yet, it is very rare to find previous studies that investigated after‐sales service provision. We investigated different dimensions of after‐sales service provision of home appliances in the Sri Lankan context. The study operationalized different dimensions of after‐sales service provision from three different perspectives and used multiple parameters to evaluate the nature of provision.     

Dynamics of capital account and current account in Sri Lanka

This paper enquires the dynamics of current account and capital account in Sri Lanka for the period 2001:Q1 to 2016:Q1 and also examines the role of some policy variables such as exchange rate and interest rate in this dynamics. Estimated autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to cointegration followed by error correction representation of the ARDL model have found that current account is caused by capital account and exchange rate, where capital account causes to produce a deficit in current account. In the dynamic adjustment of current account due to exchange rate, an evidence of J-curve phenomenon is noticed. Capital account is neither caused by current account nor by exchange rate but interest rate has a positive impact on it. Robustness of these findings is testified by the vector autoregression model, Wald test of Granger causality followed by an impulse response analysis and a variance decomposition analysis. These analyses, in addition, establish a negative impact of interest rate on current account. With the best of knowledge this is the first study that reveals the dynamics of current and capital account of Sri Lanka. Such a dynamics is critical from the policy perspective. Policy makers should caution before capital account liberalization.     

Economic Roots of Political Conflict: The Case of Sri Lanka

The escalation of political conflicts in many developing countries and their impact on economic development have been topical issues in recent development literature. The overwhelming emphasis on ‘ethnic conflicts’ in the literature has, however, precluded analysts from looking at political conflicts beyond their ethnic dimension, in the wider context of the development process. In particular, because of the preoccupation with ethnic roots as the prime source of these conflicts, reverse causation, running from economic policy to political conflict, has been virtually ignored in the debate. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap through an in‐depth case study of the ‘twin political conflict’ in Sri Lanka – the Tamil separatist war in the North and the Sinhala youth uprising in the South – with emphasis on its economic roots. The findings suggest that fundamental contradictions in the national development policy in the restrictive trade regime of Sri Lanka were at the heart of the country's twin political conflict.     

Doing business in China: Culture and practice

Ming‐Jer Chen. 2001. Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 234 pages. John B. Stuttard. 2000. The New Silk Road: Secrets of Business Success in China Today. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 144 pages. Yadong Luo. 2000. Strategy, Structure, and Performance of MNCs in China. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. 302 pages. Maria Lai‐Ling Lam. 2000. Working With Chinese Expatriates in Business Negotiations: Portraits, Issues, and Applications. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. 188 pages.     

Doing business in Brazil: A strategic approach

Brazil has the largest economy in South America, and the second largest in Latin America, offering one of the most promising markets in the world. Along with China and India, Brazil is ranked among the nations with the highest predicted development rates in the next 25 years. In the early 2000s, Brazil accounted for 56% of all foreign direct investment flows to South America and 52.5% of the foreign direct investment stock in South America. Brazil is also a key player in the design and development of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), which is scheduled to be effective by 2005. The FTAA is expected to be the world's largest regional trading block. In 2002, Brazil was ranked twelfth amongst the largest economies in the world. Brazil is one of the world's “Big Five” emerging markets, along with China, India, Mexico, and Indonesia. In the past decade, Brazil was second to China among emerging economies for received foreign direct investment. This article elaborates on the main aspects of doing business in Brazil and discusses some of the challenges and opportunities facing the Brazilian economy. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Public-Sector Accounting and E-Governance in Developing Countries: Case of Sri Lanka

This article analyzes how new public financial management system should address the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector and the emerging accrual basis accounting with e-governance for greater e-transparency on public-sector accounting in Sri Lanka. Despite the setting up of e-framework in 1983, the Sri Lankan public-sector accountancy environment during the last two decades raises concerns about efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the e-framework. The findings provide evidence of the importance of the economy and efficiency in the usage of public funds to provide more convenient access to government accounting information for citizens in Sri Lanka.     

Doing business in Russia: Lessons from early entrants

The business climate in Russia during the first half of the 1990s has been uncertain and difficult. Many companies would hesitate to invest in such a risky environment. Yet some have, and many others will do so, in light of President Boris Yeltsin's continued commitment to a market economy, and other positive developments. A survey of 49 American firms compares 24 American early entrant companies which began doing business in Russia before 1990, with 25 later arrivals. Companies in both groups shared many views about doing business there. However, differences between the two groups concerning motives, attitudes, and strategies suggest characteristics which might contribute to longer term staying power in this uncertain environment. Analyses are supplemented with examples of recent company activities, particularly those of early entrants. The article concludes with lessons based on early entrants' experiences. These lessons may benefit other firms like the newer entrants if they too choose a similar long-term horizon. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.