Volume 4, Issue 1

M.C.B. Guruge

Assistant Lecturer, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka 

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ABSTRACT

Influencer marketing is one of the emerging tools in the field of marketing and it is an area that has gained the attention of the researchers. The concept of social influencers has evolved with the rapid popularity of using peer reviews, comments and tweets on products and services when making the purchasing decisions. Subsequently the marketers have identified the vitality of user-generated content and leveraging the power of social influencers in order to promote their brands. However, there is always a grey area about the return on investment of this tool from the client’s perspective. In contrary, the customer also has a doubt on whether the information provided by influencers are credible and unbiased. Most of the previous studies were conducted to investigate the impact of social influencers on purchasing intention, attitudes and public perception on social influencers and different attributes related to social influencers. Thus, limited number of researches have provided constructive models to analyze the attributes related to influencer marketing which affects the purchasing intention. In line with this concept, this paper reveals whether the models that are associated with celebrity endorsement such as source credibility model and attractiveness model can be adapted in order to identify the attributes related to social influencers. Furthermore, some of the new attributes were incorporated to the existing models as well. A deductive method was employed and extensive literature review was carried out as the main research tool in order to highlight the contextual explanations about the concept and finally, the paper presents future research directions in the field of social influencers.  

Keywords: Celebrity Endorsement, Influencer Marketing, Social Media Influencers, Source Attractiveness Model, Source Credibility Model

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Dr. Ajith Medis

Senior Lecturer, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

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ABSTRACT

The television media industry is a matured industry, while showing a decline in some parts of the world with the replacement of technology. Television (TV) plays an essential role in the day to day lifestyle of people in the society and thus has not been fully replaceable. Due to the power of communication TV channels hold along with their consistent partnering in activities, TV channels takes a unique role in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) frontier. Further, corporate social responsible partnership with society counts on building corporate brand image. In the Sri Lankan context, there is a huge competition among twenty-three TV channels in the market. This has resulted in numerous marketing activities, with the center of aiming for a 13 million viewership. The trend of engaging in social activities was thus quickly picked by leading TV channels. In recent past natural disasters that the country faced, TV channels highlighted the service and contribution they were engaged. The study developed research questions to understand this phenomenon of how Corporate Social Responsibility influences the Corporate Brand Image of TV channels in Sri Lanka. 

The main objective of this research is to investigate the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Brand Image. The research will be an exploratory study and the researcher chose multi stage random sampling.  The population comprises of CSR benefitted TV viewers. It was identified that TV channels conducted their CSR practices in natural disaster affected areas in the recent period. For analysis, six districts were selected based on available disaster management statistics. Of them, one district was randomly selected to conduct the survey. Data was collected through the means of self-administrative questionnaires distributed among all district secretariats. Findings of the study resulted in identifying that philanthropic responsibility, ethical responsibility, and legal responsibility have significant impact on corporate brand image of TV channels while economic responsibility did not have a significant relationship. 

Keywords: Corporate Brand Image, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Responsibility, Ethical Responsibility, Legal Responsibility, Philanthropic Responsibility

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Champika D. Dharmasena

Doctoral Student, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya

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ABSTRACT

In both developed and developing countries across the world, SMEs form an important fragment of the local economic system. In Sri Lanka, for instance SME contribute about 75% percent of businesses and contribute 52% percent of GDP. With the technological development, developed and developing societies are stepping by themselves into an era of a knowledge-based economies, indicating knowledge as the most important capital for all nations to propel socio-economic development. Having understood this fact, successive governments in Sri Lanka have taken various steps, from time to time, to promote this vital sector since independence. But, when analyzing the present contribution of this sector in the national economy, it is clear that the sector has not achieved desired level of contribution when compared with other developed and developing countries in the region. This is because of the lesser opportunities in adapting disruptive innovations by SMEs including agri based SMEs with the knowledge demanding society.  So, there seems to be a vast opportunity for Sri Lanka to harness the opportunity by developing this vital sector through inventing on disruptive technologies. So, the objective of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the disruptive technology in agri based SME sector in Sri Lanka, and to make suggestions for enhancing the technological enhancement of agri based SMEs for a sustainable agriculture development in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: Digital Agriculture, Disruptive Technology, Small and Medium Enterprises

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