Arosha Adikaram

University of Colombo · Department of Human Resources Management

Situated in the backdrop of Sri Lanka, this article delves into the challenges hindering work from home (WFH) for employees and explores how organisations have navigated these hurdles during the ever-evolving stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic turmoil. Employing a qualitative approach, 77 in-depth, semi-structured interviews we...

This study investigates how heterosexual working males respond to sexual harassment they encounter at work in an Asian patriarchal culture that prescribes strict gender roles for men and women and supports heterosexual hegemonic masculinity. Using a qualitative research methodology, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 men who...

The development and promotion of legislation and policies promoting gender equity in employment form an essential part of the agenda of international organisations and global forums. However, gender inequity in the labour markets of South Asian countries remains, and the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 predicts that it will take 197 years to achieve...

Limitless connectivity enabled by Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) has aided organisations to keep their employees linked to work even after hours. Drawing from work boundary theory and sociomaterial theory, this study explores what leads to technology-assisted supplemental work (TASW) expectations and how these expectations are manage...

This article aims to explore and discuss how the leader’s creative vision comes into being within the leader and how it triggers the attainment of organizational transformation. Adopting the embedded multiple case study approach, three descriptive cases (organizational transformation initiatives) were selected for the analysis. In-depth interviews...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the motivations behind women in a developing South Asian country – Sri Lanka – to embark on entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, which is a doubly masculine hegemony operating within a culturally nuanced gendered context. Design/methodology/approach The study employs...

Purpose This paper aims to explore how Human Resource Management (HRM) practices were adopted to implement and manage remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify whether and how remote working would/should continue in the future, in a developing and a unique cultural set up in the Asian context. Design/methodology/approach The study w...

Purpose The authors aim to explore how perspective-taking and attribution of blame lead to side-taking by human resource professionals (HRPs) when making judgements and handling complaints of sexual harassment. Design/methodology/approach Employing qualitative methodology, the authors used semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 HRPs from 30 c...

This chapter explores the transferability of indigenous knowledge to contemporary context in the form of values to address common criticisms surrounding public administrative system (PAS) in Sri Lanka, such as bribery, ineffectiveness, harassment, and nepotism. It is difficult to detach indigenous knowledge and history from Buddhist philosophy in S...

Purpose This paper aims to revisit the debate on the insider-outsider positionality of the researcher in conducting qualitative research by highlighting the challenges of researching sexual harassment and harassment among stigmatized or hidden groups of individuals in a culturally value-laden backdrop in South Asia. Design/methodology/approach The...

Purpose This study aims to explore how and why employees perceive technology-mediated interruptions differently and the role of sociocultural factors in this process using sociomaterial analysis. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from 34 Sri Lankan knowledge workers using a series of workshop-based activities. The concept of sociomate...

Purpose This study aims to explore the challenges and barriers encountered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) women entrepreneurs in an emerging country context – Sri Lanka – within a context of strict gender role stereotyping beliefs and norms. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative research methodology, 15 in-depth...

This paper aims to examine what impedes Human Resource Professionals’ (HRPs) ability to enact procedural justice in resolving complaints of sexual harassment by identifying the challenges and difficulties HRPs encounter in practice. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 35 HRPs from 30 companies in Sri Lanka, employing a qualitativ...

The role of business organizations has been challenged owing to its adverse social impact. Civil Society (CS) is considered as possible contender to shape business outcomes enabling social order and social sustainability. However, CS does not demonstrate an active interest to carry out its role, raising the question ‘How does the civil society enga...

Given the diverse conceptualisations used in the measurement of organisational value congruence (OVC), the purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated typology of measurement criteria — as a methodological and measurement guideline — that can be employed in operationalising the measurement of OVC. Based on a review of over forty empirical art...

This exploratory study aims to understand the ways in which gay male employees are harassed due to their sexual orientation in Sri Lanka, a developing Asian country, within a culture of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity. Using qualitative research approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews with sixteen self-identified gay male employees were ca...

The purpose of this chapter is to explore in-depth the distinctive experiences of cyberbullying at work among women in a culturally value-laden backdrop. We were particularly interested in understanding how women employees’ gender identity is attacked through cyberbullying and how they try to regain it through various means. Drawing from in-depth s...

University-industry collaborations are encouraged globally. Despite industry-based continuous assessments, industry-focused subjects, and industrial training element of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Degree, the theory-practice knowledge gap is severely experienced by management graduates who in turn encounter issues in employability...

This article aims to examine the experiences of human resource professionals (HRPs) in managing crises posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing qualitative research methodology, in-depth interviews with 24 HRPs of different industries were carried out. The findings indicate how the HRPs have navigated through five phases of the crisis as (a) antic...

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aims to understand the ways in which gay male employees are harassed due to their sexual orientation in Sri Lanka, a developing Asian country, within a culture of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity. Using qualitative research approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews with sixteen self-identified gay male employee...

Purpose This paper aims to present an empirically driven crisis management framework of complementary human resource management (HRM) bundles that can be utilized in simultaneously managing the health crisis, financial crisis and disruptions to business operations through lockdown and other government restrictions propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic...

Purpose The decision-making styles of human resource professionals (HRPs) in resolving complaints of sexual harassment are extremely important as they form the backbone of effectiveness in the resolution of a complaint. The purpose of this paper is to explore these decision-making styles and gauge their effectiveness in resolving such complaints....

Sexual harassment at the workplace continues to be an issue all over the world. While there are many policies with well laid-out procedures specifying the process to follow when complaints of sexual harassment are received, there is still a lack of knowledge on actual practices of handling sexual harassment complaints and best practices. Data were...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how gay employees, as labeled deviants, cope with heterosexist harassment at work in an Asian culture of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity, using the modified labeling theory. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative research approach, in-depth interviews were carried out with 16 self-identi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how and with what reasons, divorced women respond to harassment they face at work, within a patriarchal culture of stigma and prejudice about divorced women. This inquiry will be performed by integrating stigma-management and identity-management research with research on responding to and coping with...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how human resource (HR) managers in garment factories in a Sri Lankan export processing zone (EPZ) navigated the tension between their role as stewards of employee welfare and their role to maximise firm productivity in response to time and production pressures imposed by international buyers. Relativ...

This article aims to provide a conceptual framework for elucidating how and under what circumstances women interpret social-sexual behaviours they experience at work as sexual harassment, by reviewing journal articles related to the interpretation of sexual conduct and harassment published between 1990 and 2016. By appraising, expanding, synthesisi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the particular culture within which research is conducted and its norms and values can give rise to additional challenges and complications for the researcher when the research area is sensitive in nature. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on research on sexual harassment of working women...

This article discusses how to overcome the language and cultural issues of using existing online videos in classroom discussions with nonnative English-speaking groups of students, through student-produced videos given as an authentic educational assignment. Implementation of the assignment and the use of student-produced videos in classroom discus...

The aim of this exploratory study is to identify the ways divorced women experience workplace harassment at the intersection of marital status and gender in an Asian context, using the theory of intersectionality. Employing qualitative research approach, in-depth interviews with 12 divorced women were carried out. Results indicated the ways in whic...

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Sri Lankan women make sense of their experiences of sexual harassment at the workplace using Weickian's ‘sense-making in organizations’ as the theoretical lens. Drawing from three narratives of working women, the findings indicate how women seek to understand what is going on, through a complex and interr...

Purpose – As prior research has indicated, women who experience behaviors that fall under the accepted definitions of sexual harassment, do not label, acknowledge, or claim these behaviors as such. The purpose of this paper is to explore an alternative explanation for this non-labeling by arguing that apprehension in expressing sexuality, stemming...

This case study aims to outline and explore the implementation of a Joint Consultative Council (JCC) and the related outcomes, challenges and issues faced by an information technology (IT) company in Sri Lanka. Implementation of JCC in the company as a form of employee voice was a result of a planned intervention of the new Human Resources (HR) tea...

Post-war Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on the promising future of the Information Technology (IT) industry to contribute considerably to the economic and social development of the country. Given the reported skill shortage and gender imbalance in the IT sector, female participation and retention is greatly advocated and promoted. In this milieu, w...

This paper is the guest editorial for this Special Issue on Gender (In)equality in South Asia of the South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management. This paper offers a perspective on the gender (in)equality issues as well as prospects in South Asia. The paper examines equalities and inequalities in national and regional labour markets, national...

The aim of this article is to explore the ethical dilemmas faced by Human Resource (HR) professionals when handling sexual harassment in organizations, using a multidimensional framework suggested by Kevin Wooten for studying Human Resource Management (HRM) ethics. Employing a qualitative research approach, HR professionals of 10 Sri Lankan compani...

Cultural influence on perception and judgement of sexual harassment is widely discussed in sexual harassment research. Yet, very few studies have delved deeper into the various norms and values of a culture, to understand how perception and interpretation of sexual harassment at the workplace is influenced by culture. This article attempts to fill...

Contemporary employer branding strategies used by top Sri Lankan companies in attracting prospective employees companies are faced with rigorous competition in attracting prospective employees for their companies. Thus, the concept of employer branding performs a significant role in recruitment functions. This study attempts to explore what employe...

This paper explores how contemporary young Sri Lankan managers value work, in terms of centrality in their lives and how this perception is shaped by their identities. Based on the social constructionist paradigm, we have used qualitative methodology to explore the issue. Purposive sampling was employed in selecting the respondents and multiple dat...