http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/handle/123456789/45 2026-01-07T03:58:53Z http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/handle/123456789/12129 Physical Environment and Employee Happiness in Two Public Sector Offices in Colombo District Fernando, W.W.C.D.; Perera, T.G.U.P. Employee happiness can determine the productivity and service quality of production and distribution spaces such as offices. The study aims to examine how the workplace physical environment is associated with employee ‘happiness’ concerning public sector offices in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire targeting 100 employees from two public sector offices in Colombo. Using the convenience sampling method, respondents were recruited by visiting each office from May to June of 2020. The data were analyzed using descriptive inferential statistics. The results revealed that the physical work environment of public sector offices impacts respective employee happiness. However, circumstances prevail where not all elements of the office physical environment impact employee happiness similarly. The findings add to a better understanding of the complicated links between office physical environment attributes and employee happiness. These insights may be utilized to evaluate important features of work environments to find relevant interventions in value-added management of buildings and facilities, as we add needless costs for office building development and vice versa. 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/handle/123456789/10348 Superstitions and Residential Property Buyer Decision Making in Sri Lanka Poologasingam, C; Perera, T.G.U.P The purpose of this study is to identify the influence of superstitious beliefs on the residential property buyer’s decision-making in Sri Lanka. Despite plethora of research devoted to study superstitious beliefs affecting residential property prices, limited studies are available discussing the effects of superstitious beliefs on the entire buyer decision-making process. Besides, no studies are dedicated to discuss the issue pertaining to the Sri Lankan residential market. Rooted to Vastu, Almanac, and Islamic discipline, superstitious beliefs on the residential property exist in Sri Lanka. These superstitious beliefs, on the whole, concentrate on the design, shape, alignment, size, location, and structure of residential properties. Superstitious beliefs of buyers become a factor affecting their problem recognition, an insight for the information search, a criterion for evaluation of alternatives, a critical factor to make a purchase or purchase intention decision, and measurement of satisfaction of the residential property purchased. These findings are based on in-depth interviews with twenty (20) residential and community experts and thirty (30) residential buyers. John Dewey's five-stage buyer decision-making process is employed as a theoretical framework for data analysis. This examination provides useful insights on the behavioural aspect of the residential market in Sri Lanka for its market actors including real estate developers, agents, businesses, and real estate planners. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/handle/123456789/9578 COVID-19 Lockdown Home Gardening in the Western Province of Sri Lanka Perera, T.G.U.P; Wickramaarachchi, N.C; Karunarathne, H.M.L.P; Munasinghe, L.M; Rupasinghe, K Sampling a set of households from three districts of the Western Province, this paper explored the landscape of lockdown home gardening which took place during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. A structured questionnaire published online enabled collecting 939 household responses. A descriptive analysis performed using the IBM SPSS package highlights that the lockdown conditions have intensified the level of home gardening of the participants. The study validates the findings from recent studies that home gardening has no dividing line when it comes to the socioeconomic character of households. Primary benefit of home gardening is of households’ being in seek of good and healthy consumption, vegetables and fruits have been the most preferred crop types to grow. Application of organic fertiliser have been preferred by the majority of the households. This study supports the notion that urban land scarcity is not a limiting factor for home gardening. The paper suggests that this home gardening trend reignited during the Covid-19 lockdown needs to be supported by three means: promoting healthy lifestyles, connecting government officials with local home gardeners and local plans being supportive and appreciative of home gardening. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/handle/123456789/9437 Communicative Planning Potentials of Housing Estate Development Process in England: A Case Study from Dickens Heath New Settlement Perera, U In the 21st century, societies are increasingly multi-sided with secular interests, making urban issues complex, dynamic and unable to be solved by a single institution. In this context, communicative planning propagates that the pathway to finding sustainable solutions for complex social problems would come from stakeholder participation and the identification of shared interests among such secular interests (consensus building). Rooted to Habermasian communicative rationality, communicative planning argues, stakeholder participation can ponder not only the scientific knowledge but also emotive and moral knowledge of lay actors such as local communities to inform planning better. In this respect, the paper explores the extent to which communicative planning works for the housing estate delivery process in England. With key pieces of planning legislation, mandating community engagement in all forms of physical development, England is considered one of the highest forms of legal backing for communicative planning. Meanwhile, housing provision is one of the complex and critical planning concerns of all cities. Dickens Heath New Settlement (DHNS) - a large scale housing estate development in the West Midlands of England, has been selected as the case study here to investigate this communicative planning potential in the context of housing estate development. Following qualitative methods, data were collected through sixty in-depth interviews with DHNS residents, community groups, master planners and local authority planners, and documentary evidence such as the DHNS master plan and local planning documents. The findings highlighted that communicative planning had a negligible effect at the conceptual planning stage of DHNS, but accrued relatively positive outcomes at the mature design, development and management phases of the estate development. These are valuable insights for housing development practice, communicative planning theory and practice, and reflect on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 - sustainable cities and communities in the context of England. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z