CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS TO ENHANCE THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: EVIDENCE FROM SRI LANKA
►T.M.A. Tennakoon, Kennedy Gunawardena, S.P.Premaratne
10.52283/NSWRCA.AJBMR.20200512A02
ABSTRACT
This study through an exploratory approach review the challenges and constraints faced in enhancing entrepreneurship education in developing countries using Sri Lanka as a case study. Previous studies on the subject matter is very scarce and even in international journals only few papers appeared on entrepreneurship education in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to study the current entrepreneurship education system in Sri Lankan state universities with reference to challenges and constraints and to propose an action plan to raise entrepreneurship education in Sri Lanka to be in par with that of developed nations so that these universities can act as the centerpieces of business innovations and entrepreneurship development. This paper employs an exploratory study approach by analyzing current entrepreneurship education system in Sri Lanka by reviewing secondary data such as various journals and government publications to build the arguments and recommendations outlined. Among constraints and challenges for the development of entrepreneurship education, lack of resources, lack of entrepreneurial skills in lecturers, poor stake-holder engagement, weak government policies and industry – university gap are common to most developing countries. In addition with its free education policy, Sri Lankan universities are faced with strict university entrance procedures and lack of selection of desired courses for majority of students. Findings of this study and salient suggestions will be an invaluable toolkit for policy makers to design effective strategies for entrepreneurship education in developing countries.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, university, developing countries, Sri Lanka
-
IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLES ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: A MODERATING ROLE OF GENDER
►Omkar Dastane
10.52283/NSWRCA.AJBMR.20200512A03
ABSTRACT
The impact of different leadership styles on employee performance was investigated in this study, whereby the proposed styles included transformational leadership, Laissez-Faire leadership, democratic leadership, and autocratic leadership. Concomitantly, the moderating effect of gender between such leadership styles and employee performance was also tested. The required data were collected by utilising a structured questionnaire and disseminating it through an online survey, engaging a sample size of 211 employees of multinational corporations in Malaysia selected using convenient sampling. Accordingly, IBM SPSS 24 was employed to conduct the reliability and normality assessment, while IBM SPSS AMOS 24 application was for the purpose of conducting the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modelling (SEM), and moderation analysis. As a result, a positive and significant relationship was found between the transformational, Laissez-Faire, and democratic leadership styles towards employee performance in Malaysia, respectively. Furthermore, the relationship between autocratic leadership and employee performance was statistically insignificant following the hypothesis testing. Meanwhile, the impact of transformational and Laissez-Faire leadership styles on employee performance was fully moderated by gender, whereas the correlation between democratic leadership and employee performance was only partially moderated. In contrast, gender posed a statistically insignificant impact for autocratic leadership and employee performance association. Moreover, the effect of transformational leadership on employee performance was more pronounced in males compared to females. The effect of Laissez-Faire leadership on employee performance is more pronounced in ‘female’ compared to ‘male’. Meanwhile, the effect of democratic leadership on the variable was more pronounced in females compared to males, but with a minimum difference. The managerial implications, limitations, and future research avenues are discussed accordingly.
Keywords: Leadership styles, transformational leadership, Laissez-Faire leadership, democratic leadership, autocratic leadership, gender, moderation analysis, employee performance