The effect of social media advertisement features on the online purchase intention: a case study in Sri Lanka

With the development of technology, most people got the chance to engage in digital marketing activities. Online shopping is a trending facility that improves day by day and social media advertisements play a major role in customers’ online purchase intention. The purpose of this study was to observe how the features of social media advertisements affect the online purchase intention of customers in Sri Lanka when purchasing products including agricultural products. The social media advertisement features that affect online purchase intention (creativity, customer feedback, entertainment and information in advertisements) were considered in this study. A google form questionnaire was used to gather data and 312 responses were collected. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were used for the data analysis. After analyzing the gathered data, it was found that informative advertisements and creative advertisements on social media platforms have a direct impact on online purchasing intention. Also, the results indicated that customer feedback affects purchase intention through information. Entertaining online advertisements have an impact on purchase intention through their creativity. This study focused on only four features in social media advertisements. Therefore, future researchers should address the other advertisement features as well. The findings of this research can be used to make advertisements more useful and profitable for advertisers as well as sellers

The impacts of risk and competition on bank profitability in China

Several rounds of banking reforms in China have aimed to increase the competitive condition and further enhance stability in the Chinese banking sector, while the joint effects of competition and risk-taking behaviour on the profitability in the banking sector have not been studied well enough so far in the literature. The current study contributes to the empirical literature by testing the impacts of risk and competition on profitability in the Chinese banking industry (state-owned, joint-stock and city commercial banks) over the period 2003-2011 under a one-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) system estimator. The results do not show any robust finding with regards to the impacts of competition and risk on bank profitability, while it is found that Chinese bank profitability is affected by taxation, overhead cost, labour productivity and inflation. The study provides policy implications to the Chinese banking industry and different ownership types of Chinese commercial banks

Efficiency, productivity, change and market structure of the banking industry in Sri Lanka

[Abstract]: During the last 27 years, the banking industry in Sri Lanka has undergone a series of changes through financial reforms, advancement of communication and information technologies, globalisation of financial services, and economic development. Those changes should have had a considerable effect on efficiency, productivity change, market structure and performance in the banking industry. The motivation of this study is to investigate empirically the impact of those changes on the banking industry. Thus, this study aims to address three main research issues related to the banking industry in Sri Lanka, namely: 1. Whether deregulation of the financial services sector has led to improvement in efficiency and productivity gains. 2. Whether banks’ inefficiency in the banking industry in Sri Lanka is determined by a set of microeconomic and macroeconomic variables. 3. Whether the changes in efficiency or changes in market structure have influenced the overall operational performance of banks in Sri Lanka. This study adopts a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) to measure efficiency and productivity gains of banks in Sri Lanka using financial and other information representing all local banks over a sixteen year period from 1989 to 2004. Input and output variables are refined to represent the intermediation and assets transformation roles of banks. Window analysis of mean estimated efficiency scores in both aspects indicates a negative trend in estimated efficiency during the study period. However, the analysis of efficiency scores (intermediation) of different forms of banks shows a negative trend during the first half of the study period and a slight positive trend during the end of the second half. These results imply that deregulation may have failed to improve the efficiency of the Sri Lankan banking industry in the short-term. However, the expected benefits of deregulation can be achieved in the long-term. Interestingly, the two state-owned banks have responded poorly to the initial phase of Sri Lankan financial reforms. However, the improved autonomy given to boards of management under the commercialisation process has led not only to improved efficiency, but also to the reduction of the efficiency gap between the state-owned banks and privately-owned banks. The analysis of efficiency scores (asset transformation) of different forms of banks records a stable trend in estimated efficiency. On the other hand, estimated MPIs show that Sri Lankan banks have focused on improving productivity in the asset transformation process rather than the intermediation process. Analysis of determinants of technical efficiency shows that technical efficiency in intermediation has positive relationships with variables such as profitability, operational risk, purchased funds, liquidity and stock market capitalization; and negative relationships with variables such as product quality and line of business (commercial bank). Further, results show that efficiency in the asset transformation process has positive relationships with capital strength, operational risk, and market capitalisation; and negative relationships with line of business ownership (privately owned banks) and old banks. The investigation of influence of market structure and efficiency on operational performance finds that banks’ relative market power and technical efficiency have a significant influence on their return on assets (ROA). No evidence supports any relationship of net interest margin with variables such as market power, concentration and efficiency

Market structure, efficiency and performance of banking industry in Sri Lanka

During the period of 1977-2005, reforms in the financial-services sector, development in information and communication technologies (ICT) and globalization of the industry have drastically changed the market structure of banking industry in Sri Lanka. Financial reforms commenced in late 1970s were the main driving force of those changes. The reforms aimed to enhance both the productivity and efficiency and the degree of competition of banking market as a way of improving overall operational performance of the financial services sector in Sri Lanka. This paper reviewed how the banks’ efficiency and market structure affect the overall performance of the banking firms measured in terms of profitability and net interest margin using structure conduct performance literature. The study findings suggest that traditional structure conduct performance argument is not held in the banking industry in Sri Lanka and the banks performance does not depend on either market concentration or market power of individual firms but on the level of efficiency of the banking units