The Impact of Organizational Environmental Support on Organizational Sustainable Performance: The Mediating Role of Employee Green Behaviour in selected Commercial banks in Batticaloa Region of Sri Lanka

Sustainability is a major global concern and there has been increased pressure on organizations from the stakeholders to broaden the focus of business performance beyond financial performance. Companies should have a balance among financial, social and environmental performance in order to be competitive and survive in the long term. Committed employees are the key asset of every organization and organizations can engage employees in improving their sustainable performance. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the associations between organizational environmental support and organizational sustainable performance with the mediating role of employee green behaviour within the selected commercial banks in the Batticaloa Region of Sri Lanka. Data collection was made from 173 employees who are working in commercial banks in the Batticaloa Region of Sri Lanka. Univariate, bivariate, and multi-step mediation analyses have been used to analyze the data. The results indicate that there is a significant positive association between organizational environmental support, employee green behaviour and organizational sustainable performance. It is also concluded that employee green behaviour significantly mediates the relationship between organizational environmental support and organizational sustainable performance. The research concerns the understanding of various environmental support initiatives and sustainable performance from the viewpoint of employees in the banking sector at imparting employee green behaviour as one of the important factors to meet challenges relevant to environmental sustainability in the dynamic banking sector. This study contributes to the field by bringing together the concepts of employee green behaviour with organizational environmental support and organizational sustainable performance in the context of the Sri Lankan banking sector and suggests the banks provide resources and a supportive environment for the employees to implement eco-initiatives. Keywords: Employee Green Behaviour, Organizational Environmental Support, Organizational Sustainable Performanc

The Effect of Environment Knowledge and Pro-Environment Psychological Climate on Environmental Citizenship Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Environmental Commitment

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of environmental knowledge and proenvironmental psychological climate on environmental citizenship behaviour with the mediating effect of environmental commitment. The primary data were collected from 177 employees of five selected commercial banks in the Batticaloa Region of Sri Lanka through self-reported questionnaires and analyzed by using univariate, bivariate, and multi-step mediational analyses. The findings of this study highlighted that environmental knowledge, pro-environmental psychological climate, environmental citizenship behaviour, and environmental commitment are at high levels among the surveyed banks. In addition, the findings discovered that there are positive and significant relationships existing among environmental knowledge, pro-environmental psychological climate, environmentalcommitment, and environmental citizenship behaviour of employees. Moreover, the mediating analysis revealed that environmental commitment partially mediates the relationship between environmental knowledge and environmental citizenship behaviour as well as the pro-environmental psychological climate-environmental citizenship behaviour linkage. This study has significant implications for managers who want to promote environmental citizenship behaviours, as they can benefit from improving the environmental knowledge of employees and developing a pro-environmental psychological climate in theirorganizational context. Key Words: Environmental Commitment, Environmental Citizenship Behaviour, Environmental Knowledge, Pro-environmental Psychological Climat

Green Manufacturing Practices and Sustainable Performance of Organization in Selected Manufacturing Companies in Kegalle District of Sri Lanka

This study aims to examine the impact of green manufacturing practices on sustainable performance of organization. In order to achieve the study objective, primary data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among 70 manufacturing companies which are operating in Kegalle district of Sri Lanka. This study has used the convenience sampling (availability sampling) method and the unit of analysis was individual firms. The simple regression analysis was used to test the research model. The findings of the study revealed that there is a moderate level of green manufacturing practices implemented in the selected manufacturing companies and sustainable performance of surveyed companies was recorded at in moderate level. And the findings of the study also suggested that green manufacturing practices have a significant and positive impact on sustainable performance of organization. This study suggested that manufacturing organizations need to focus more on the implementation of green manufacturing practices to ensure organizational sustainability.    Keywords: Green manufacturing, sustainable performance, Sri Lank

Team Working Practices and Team Orientation of Employee: A Comparative Study between the State and Private Banks in Sri Lanka

An empirical knowledge gap was observed regarding Team Working Practices (TWP) and Team Orientation of Employee (TOE) of the selected bank branches (State Bank 1, State Bank 2, Private Bank 1 and Private Bank 2) in Sri Lanka.  In general, the selected banks have formal and informal practices regarding team work and also promoting team work and team culture among their employees to flourish team orientation.  Therefore, in order to fill this empirical knowledge gap, this study was conducted with three research objectives such as to explore the team working practices, level of team orientation of employee of selected state and private sector bank branches and also to investigate the differences in team orientation of employee according to the employee’s gender, age, education, grade, working section and experience. In order to achieve the first objective of this study data were collected from the secondary sources, mainly from last four years annual reports and content analysis was applied. In this case, the unit of analysis was bank. Regarding second and third objectives primary data were collected from 115 employees of selected bank branches and the structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data. The data were analyzed by using univariate (descriptive measures such as mean and standard deviation) and cross-tabulation analyses. In this case, the unit of analysis was bank employee. In connection with first objective, findings of the study revealed that both state and private sector banks are practicing various team working practices, but relatively private sector banks have more team practices than state sector banks. In private sector, PB-1 has more team practices than PB-2. Regarding the second objective, the results of the study showed that there is a higher level of team orientation among the employees of the four banks (mean value was above 3.5) but there were slight differences observed.  The mean values for the PB-1, PB-2, SB-1 and SB-2 were 4.19, 4.18, 3.94 and 3.77 respectively. Cross-tabulating of the overall level of team-orientation with gender, age, education, grade, working section and experiences of employees revealed that there are some differences regarding the third objective. Finding of the study will be useful and important in understanding empirical knowledge regarding the concepts of team working practices and team orientation of employee from the banking sector perspective. Key Words: Team, Teamwork, Team Working Practices, Team Orientation, Bank Employe

Practical approach to predict the shear strength of fibre-reinforced clay

yesCarpet waste fibres have a higher volume to weight ratios and once discarded into landfills, these fibres occupy a larger volume than other materials of similar weight. This research evaluates the efficiency of two types of carpet waste fibre as sustainable soil reinforcing materials to improve the shear strength of clay. A series of consolidated undrained (CU) triaxial compression tests were carried out to study the shear strength of reinforced clays with 1%, to 5% carpet waste fibres. The results indicated that carpet waste fibres improve the effective shear stress ratio and deviator stress of the host soil significantly. Addition of 1%, 3% and 5% carpet fibres could improve the effective stress ratio of the unreinforced soil by 17.6%, 53.5% and 70.6%, respectively at an initial effective consolidation stress of 200 kPa. In this study, a nonlinear regression model was developed based on a modified form of the hyperbolic model to predict the relationship between effective shear stress ratio, deviator stress and axial strain of fibre-reinforced soil samples with various fibre contents when subjected to various initial effective consolidation stresses. The proposed model was validated using the published experimental data, with predictions using this model found to be in excellent agreement

An Exploratory Study on the Personal Qualities/Characteristics expected by the Organisations for Key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka

This study explores a gap in the empirical knowledge with regard to the personalqualities/characteristics expected by the organisations for key HRM jobs in the field of HRMin Sri Lanka. The research questions of this exploratory study were: What are the personalqualities/characteristics needed or expected by the organizations which are operating in SriLanka for key HRM jobs? And is it possible to develop a sort of illustration to understandpersonal qualities/characteristics expected for key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka? In order toanswer the research questions systematically, an exploratory study was conducted by usingeight key HRM job related employment advertisements appeared in the Sunday Observernewspaper for the period of 5 years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010). Time horizon of the study was longitudinal and HRM related job advertisement was the unit of analysis of thestudy.Comprehensive and systematic content analysis along with descriptive statistics was appliedto generate results and findings. The results of the study revealed that the personalqualities/characteristics are one of the very important requirements in selecting people forkey HRM jobs in Sri Lanka. At the same time it differs from key job to another key job. Whenconsidering the personal qualities for the selected key HRM jobs, the findings revealed thatthere are 39 personal qualities related to the post of HR Director, 29 personal qualitiesrelated to the Group HR Manager, 41 personal qualities related to Head of HRM, 98 personalqualities related to the HR Manager, 81 personal qualities related to the HR Executive, 50personal qualities related to the HR Officer, 32 personal qualities related to the TrainingManager, and 15 personal qualities related to the post of Recruitment Manager.With regard to the personal qualities eleven (11) key dimensions of personal qualities wereidentified in addition to the number of personal qualities including attitude related,personality related, good character related, team related, professional related, businessrelated, people related, performance related, physical appearance related, leadership traitsrelated and HR/HRM related aspects. The implications of these findings are useful to all stakeholders and professionals of HRM especially in developing good professionalism amongcurrent HR professionals in Sri Lanka and prospective personnel who wish to establish acareer in HRM.Key Words: Human Resource Management, Key HRM jobs, Personal Qualitie

Utilising novel green binders in ground improvement applications

Special attention is being paid currently to geopolymers as novel binders in ground improvement applications. The use of industrial by-products such as fly ash (FA) and slag (S) in the synthesis of geopolymers makes these alternatives to traditional binders, such as Portland cement, sustainable binders with low-carbon footprint. Geopolymers have been studied and used in a variety of applications, such as concrete or ceramic manufacturing, with controllable conditions of production environment. There are however limited knowledge on the use of geopolymers, as stabilising binders, in ground improvement projects and lack of certainties as to how these new binders would behave in the field where varying factors such as water table or temperature could affect the strength development. This study evaluates the reliability of using a FA and S based geopolymer to stabilise a soft marine clay. The strength development and the mineralogy of the mixtures were studied. The combined FA+S contents were 10, 20 and 30%, and mixtures were prepared at water contents of 0.75, 1.0 and 1.25 liquid limit (LL). Samples were cured for 28 days at temperatures of 10, 25 and 40°C. Strength development was significantly increased by adding the FA+S content, particularly at 20% and higher. Moreover, when the water content was increased from 0.75 to 1.0 LL, strength development was enhanced, followed by a decrease at water content of 1.25 LL. Furthermore, by increasing the curing temperature, higher strengths were achieved and the strength development was accelerated. The results indicated that green geopolymeric binders could be used as reliable binders in ground improvement applications

An Exploratory Study on the Experience Requirements of Key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka

It has been generally observed that there is a gap in the empirical knowledge with regard tothe experience requirements of key HRM jobs in terms of number of years and contents ofexperiences in the field of HRM in Sri Lanka. The research questions of this exploratory studyare: What are the experiences needed or expected by the organizations which are operating inSri Lanka for key HRM jobs in terms of number of years and contents? and Is it possible todevelop a sort of illustration to understand experience requirements of key HRM jobs in SriLanka? Objectives of this study are to explore the experience requirements of key HRM jobs interms of number of years and contents; and to develop an illustration of experiencerequirements of key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka. In order to achieve the objectives of this research,an exploratory study was conducted by using eight key HRM job related employmentadvertisements appeared in the Sunday Observer newspaper for the period of 5 years (2006,2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010). This study was longitudinal in time horizon. The unit of analysisof this study was HRM related job advertisement. The extent of the researchers’ interference inthis study was minimal as there had not been any manipulation and control of variables. Thisstudy was carried out in a natural (non-contrived) environment where events occurrednormally.Mainly by using comprehensive and systematic content analysis along with descriptivestatistics, results and findings were generated. The results of the study revealed that theexperience requirement is one of the very important requirements in selecting people for keyHRM jobs. At the same time it varies from job to job. When considering the experiencerequirements for the selected key HRM jobs, the findings revealed that mostly a minimum of 5-10 years experience at senior level (as a HR Manager/Head of HR Department) is neededexperience for the post of HR Director. A minimum of 5 years experience is needed for thepost of Head of HRM, Group HR Manager, HR Manager and Training Manager mostly. ForHR Executive, HR Officer and Recruitment Manager a minimum of 2-3 years experience isexpected by the organizations which are operating in Sri Lanka.With regard to the contents (quality) of experiences, eight (08) key dimensions of experiencewere identified in addition to the number of years (quantity) such as general experience inHRM field, special experience in specific HRM area/function, scope of experience in HRMfield (local or international), sector related experience, management level/position relatedexperience, industry related experience, workforce/organisation size based experience andtime preference based experience. Based on identified key dimensions of experiences, a modelwas developed from this exploratory study in order to provide an understanding about theexperience requirements of selected key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka. The implications of thesefindings are useful to all stakeholders of HRM especially current and potential job seekers,organizations and HRM workforce developers in Sri Lanka.Key Words: Key HRM Jobs, Experience Requirements, Exploratory Stud