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The total essence of apparel manufacturing buildings (AMBs) is highly influenced by fire incidents which are caused direct or indirect impacts to the present building structure or even in old age. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the fire risk of AMBs in Sri Lanka.

A literature review was conducted to explore the local and international fire incidents in AMBs and identify 24 factors that contribute to fire risk of AMBs. A questionnaire survey with professionals who have the knowledge and experience related to past fire incidents and 18 interviews with professionals of fire safety management were carried out. Content analysis was involved to evaluate interviewees’ opinions and relative importance index was involved to rank identified factors that contribute to the fire risk of AMBs.

The results revealed that due to the business nature of AMBs hold a high risk for fire incidents. The study discovered 83.4% of high fire risk prevailing in AMBs in Sri Lanka. Faulty wiring, welding work with electrical sparks and accumulation of waste fabric, paper and other garbage recognized as the top three factors that contribute to the fire risk of AMBs in Sri Lanka. Finally, the strategies proposed to eliminate identified all 41 factors that contribute to the fire risk of AMBs in Sri Lanka.

The paper helps to guide facility owners regarding the fire safety of AMBs in Sri Lanka.

Under-reporting of occupational accidents is a common problem in many countries. This is mainly because of the shortfalls in accident reporting and recording systems. Construction industry being a hazardous industry, the rate of accidents is higher compared with other industries and apparently a high rate of under-reporting. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the rate of under-reporting, significant reasons for under-reporting and identify the shortcomings in the existing accident reporting system in Sri Lanka in aiming to recommend efficient mechanisms for occupational accident recording and reporting to construction industry.

Both secondary and primary data were tapped to gather required data. The secondary data were extracted from the records available in year 2014-2015 at the office of the commissioner for workmen’s compensation and the industrial safety division of the Department of Labor (DoL) to analyze the rate of under-reporting. The primary data were obtained through expert interviews to explore the gaps in reporting system and to identify mechanisms to reduce under-reporting.

The findings revealed 80 per cent of construction accidents are under-reported. Eight gaps in the current accident recording and reporting system and key recommendations at organizational and national level for its improvements were identified.

The findings provide an insight of occupational safety and health (OSH) practices in construction industry and it can be used as an eye opening flash for safety law-makers and practitioners to revisit the existing regulations and practices.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms, i.e. board structure and ownership structure on the underpricing of small and medium enterprises (SME) IPOs in India.

Most of the extant empirical research studies have either pivoted on mainstream IPOs or SMEs IPOs in developed economies, but the present study examines 200 SME IPOs issued during Feb 2012 to April 2017. Multiple regressions have been used to examine the impact of the corporate governance mechanisms on raw return (RR). Furthermore, robustness of the results has been verified through the employment of market-adjusted excess return (MAER) as an additional proxy of underpricing.

The results highlight that board size, inverse of board committees, board independence, board age, board directorships positively, and top ten shareholding negatively influence RR. Further, direction of promoter ownership variable indicates curvilinear relationship with underpricing. Other explanatory variables used in model lack statistical validity. Similar results have been obtained when variables were regressed against MAER with related board members being additionally significant in model.

The findings suggest that Indian investors do take cues from board structure and ownership patterns for making investment decisions in small- and medium-sized firms. Further, the results are also helpful to top management in structuring their boards.

The present research enriches SME IPOs underpricing literature because the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on unadjusted returns is relatively under explored particularly within the context of small- and medium-sized firms.

This study examines and compares different specifications of the fiscal policy rule in the fiscal sustainability analysis of Nigeria.

This is methodologically achieved by estimating the baseline constant-parameter and Markov regime switching fiscal models. The asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag fiscal model is also employed to substantiate the differential responses of fiscal authorities to public debt.

The baseline constant-parameter fiscal model provides mixed results of sustainable and unsustainable fiscal policy. The inconclusiveness is adduced to instability in primary fiscal balance–public debt dynamics. This makes it necessary to capture regime switches in the fiscal policy rule. The Markov switching estimations show a protracted fiscal unsustainable regime that is inconsistent with the intertemporal budget constraint (IBC). The no-Ponzi game and debt stabilizing results of the Markov switching fiscal model further revealed that the transversality and debt stability conditions were not satisfied. Additional findings from the asymmetric autoregressive model estimation show that fiscal consolidation responses vary with contraction and expansion in output and spending, coupled with downturns and upturns in public debt dynamics in both the long and short run. These findings thus confirm the presence of asymmetries in the fiscal policy authorities' reactions to public debt. Further, additional evidences show the violation of the IBC which is exacerbated by the deleterious effect of the pro-cyclical fiscal policy response in boom on the improvement of the primary fiscal balance.

This study deviates from the extant literature by accommodating time variation, periodic switches and fiscal policy asymmetries in the fiscal sustainability analysis of Nigeria.

Food consumption patterns have changed in many Asian countries over the past two–three decades. It is important to understand the changes in food consumption patterns and its drivers in different country settings as each country has different food cultures, tastes and habits. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the patterns and determinants of food consumption choice and demand in Sri Lanka.

Using Household Income and Expenditure Survey 1990/1991, 2002 and 2012/2013 data, this study explores the relationship between food consumption patterns and the observed changes reported in per capita income, urbanization, structural transformations and demographics. Specifically, present study estimates the probability of consuming main food items such as rice, bread, dhal, vegetables and fish using a multivariate probit model and also estimates income and price elasticities of household major food items by applying Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System.

This study demonstrates that per capita income, food prices, education level of the household heads, rural–urban affiliation and ethnic background significantly affect the consumption decision of the major food items. Sri Lankan households in general seem to consider that rice and dhal are necessary commodities, whereas bread and fish are luxury commodities.

The lack of panel data and several missing districts in two survey rounds for analysis are limitations of the study.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study for Sri Lanka that examines food consumption choice and demand using nationwide data for the last two decades. This study applies novel econometric techniques to account for various issues in data analysis.

This article investigates the determinants of cross-section variation of initial public offerings' (IPOs) first-day returns in a sample of 710 issues across seven emerging markets between 2013 and 2017.

Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and the semi-parametric quantile regression (QR) technique are employed. QR enables to analyse beyond the explanatory variables' relative mean effect at various points in the endogenous variable distribution. Furthermore, parameter estimates under QR are robust to the existence of outliers and long tails in the data distribution.

Underpricing varies across countries with an average of 78%. According to the OLS results, independent variables explain 26% of the variation of IPOs' first-day returns. Findings show that employing QR is important, given the non-normality of the data and because each quantile is associated with a different effect of explanatory variables.

In addition to firm-specific, market-specific and issue-specific factors, the paper extends IPOs' underpricing literature through studying the impact of country-specific characteristics, largely neglected by literature, on IPO underpricing.

The purpose of this paper is to report a rare case of segmental neck of femur fracture (SNoFF) and highlight its quality assurance and governance implications with respect to national guidelines, care pathways and best practice tariff.

Case report of an SNoFF in a 67-year-old woman treated at a district general hospital (DGH) was used in this study.

SNoFF required additional implants that delayed the surgery by five days. The authors were unable to adhere to the British Orthopaedic Association standards for trauma and Scottish Inter-Collegiate Guidelines Network recommendations which indicate that all neck of femur fractures (NoFFs) be fixed within 48 h. Though the patient was discharged without any untoward event and had an uneventful recovery, this case led us to introspect and learn how best to avoid such an incident from repeating again.

This case led to an overhaul of NoFF and trauma services. The local logistics was restructured to procure “Trochanteric grip plates” within 24 h to provide mandated quality of care in an effort towards improving patient experience/outcomes.

SNoFF are rare injuries and its diagnosis is either delayed or missed in at least 20 per cent of the cases on initial evaluation. The non-availability of additional implants readily on the shelf coupled with lack of a trauma bed at the tertiary centre resulted in an unacceptable delay from admission to definitive surgery. The authors recommend that all DGHs have a mechanism/emergency procurement procedure system in place to obtain the required instrumentation kits rapidly through a sharing scheme with regional hospitals or through implant vendor to avoid unacceptable delays to surgery.

Intellectual capital (IC) is beneficial to the improved performance of businesses, irrespective of their industry. The present study proposes to check if the use of IC can also help in improving the asset quality of banks. Thus, this study aims to examine the impact of IC and its components on non-performing assets (NPAs).

The study has been conducted with a sample of 30 Indian commercial banks and analysed over a time frame of 15 years (2004–2005 to 2018–2019). The modified value-added intellectual coefficient model has been used to measure the independent variables, IC, and its components. The dependent variable, NPA, has been represented by the net NPA ratio. Two-step system generalized methods of moments (SGMMs) have been applied for the regression analysis. Along with the short-term estimates provided by the SGMM approach, the long-term impact of explanatory variables on the dependent variables has also been seen.

The results of the study show that IC and its components are indeed helpful for the management of NPA, as they impact the problem loans negatively. Furthermore, the long-term benefits of IC in enhancing bank credit quality are more substantial.

The results from the present study can be used by bank management. The bank managers can draw inferences that the efficient application of IC can help them reduce their loan losses. Developing skills and knowledge of employees, maintaining close relations with stakeholders, significantly the customers, and putting more sophisticated processes and infrastructure to use can help banks to control their loan losses.

A major proportion of studies examining the role of intangible assets in various aspects of the banking sector focuses on the association between IC and the financial performance of banking entities. However, for banking institutions, apart from financial performance, improving credit quality is also imperative for staying afloat. Thus, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is one of the first to examine the relationship between knowledge-based assets (i.e. IC) and bank credit quality.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effect of marketing communication techniques concerning product placement and TV commercials on brand recall and the purchase intention of consumers.

A sample of 420 participants randomly assigned to one of the four scenarios of an experiment watched a selected episode of a Sri Lankan TV show that consisted of commercial breaks. Then, their recall and purchase intention toward the advertised/placed brand were measured using a questionnaire and binary logistic regression was the analytical tool.

This research indicated that a combination of product placement and TV commercials forms the highest impact on both brand recall and purchase intention. The next highest impact is created solely by product placement, while sole TV commercials make the lowest impact comparatively.

This study is beneficial to brands and entrepreneurs looking for the most effective marketing communication methods to promote their brands and products to consumers.

As an initial study performed on a comparison between two commonly used marketing communication techniques, i.e. product placement and TV commercials, in the Sri Lankan context would also enrich the global marketing literature on the comparative effectiveness of both techniques, where studies are limited so far.

As Generation Y is considered to be a lucrative segment for emerging devices, this study investigates the effect of emotional brand attachment, from the brand romance perspective, on brand loyalty of Generation Y smartphone users. Furthermore, this study examines gender differences in the same relationship.

The study adopted a cross-sectional survey method and data was collected from 300 respondents. Data was analyzed using the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach and multi-group analysis was performed to examine gender differences in the model.

Results revealed that all three aspects of brand romance (pleasure, arousal and dominance) have a positive impact on smartphone brand loyalty. It further denotes that the relationship between brand romance and brand loyalty differs from males to females.

This study makes a significant contribution by examining emotional attachment and brand loyalty of Generation Y consumers, which has been less investigated. Furthermore, both attitudinal and behavioral brand loyalty has been considered in this study, which has largely been overlooked in similar studies. Examining the gender difference in the above relationship is an additional contribution.