Digital Transformation for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs): with Special Focus on Sri Lankan Context as an Emerging Economy (Published)
Small & Medium Enterprises (SME’s) constitutes for over 75% of the number of enterprises in Sri Lanka and contribute to 52% of the GDP of Sri Lankan economy. In any case, the development and extension of SME’s are constrained due to a multitude of factors that are yet to be investigated. Competition is often intense for SME’s in Sri Lanka and they can neither influence price nor quantity. The standard view of competitive advantages on differentiation or cost is a challenge for SME’s. They are probably not going to have the option to “lock” in clients and providers, build entry barriers or altogether lower cost. SME’s usually have limited resources in finance, skilled employees, in-house knowledge or management. Meanwhile, digital transformation is featured in many businesses enabling reshaping the strategy and business models. SMEs are also found as empirically investigated context with the concept of digitalization, but still further studies are claimed on it. Accordingly, this paper investigates how SMEs could be benefitted with digital transformation as a strategic initiation whilst challenges and cases are discussed in line within. It has followed comprehensive literature review as the main research tool and the paper is framed as a concept paper with the discussion on empirical insights. Authors made an attention on Sri Lankan SME sector as a specific context. Finally, it concludes the paper with some research directions and priorities for the future studies.
Keywords: Digital Transformation, SMEs, Sri Lanka, business models, competitive advantages
Perceived Effectiveness of Celebrity Endorsement on Perceived Brand Evaluation in the Scope of Services Sector: A Review Paper (Published)
Celebrity endorsement practices are referred in many studies in relations to behavioral and cognitive perspectives across the markets and product scopes. The notion of effectiveness of celebrity endorsement is noted as one of the niches in many empirical studies. Meanwhile, multiplicity has been postulated as another investigation area that claims further investigations to determine its influence on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Besides, industry significance and empirical gaps found in recent studies note services sector as a significant case to examine the overall effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on endorsed-brand evaluation. Meanwhile, consumer-celebrity emotional bond resulted via celebrity worship motives has also being emphasized as a mechanism that patterns the influence of celebrity endorsement on perceived brand evaluation. Accordingly, this paper focuses to postulate how the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement influences perceived brand evaluation in services sector brands by specifying Sri Lanka as a specific context. Paper referred the source-based factors and multiplicity, which is a context of management –based factors, to determine the overall effectiveness of celebrity endorsement whilst Brand Trust and Brand Love and Brand Attitudes were highlighted as different facets of perceived brand evaluation. It has pointed out the industry significance of the celebrity endorsement practices in Sri Lanka within the services scope by concluding managerial implications. Finally, paper postulates future research directions with reference to the relationship between effectiveness of celebrity endorsement and perceived brand evaluation.
Keywords: Celebrity Worship Motives, Perceived Brand Evaluation, Perceived Effectiveness of Celebrity Endorsement, Services Brands, Sri Lanka