Faculty of Management and Finance

The Faculty of Management and Finance remains as the growing faculty of the University of Colombo which was established in May 1994. Historical development of this faculty dates back to 1979 when the Department of Commerce and Management Studies of the University of Colombo was set up. As a department which operated under the Faculty of Arts, the Department of Commerce and Management Studies grew rapidly in 1980s and thereby became the department which accommodated the highest number of undergraduates in the Faculty of Arts.

In line with the increasing student population and the rapidly growing needs of Sri Lankan business community, the necessity for establishing a new faculty for this particular field of study began to be felt in late 1980s. As an initial step of expediting the process of establishing the new faculty, two academic departments, namely the Department of Commerce and the Department of Management Studies, were formed in 1993 under the purview of the Faculty of Arts. Finally, the long-lived dream of all interested parties materialized in May 1994 with the inauguration of the Faculty of Management and Finance. Since then the undergraduate population of the faculty has rapidly grown.

The Faculty of Management and Finance is committed to pursuing excellence in research, teaching, community services and university-industry cooperation and collaboration, whilst making all efforts to be the center of excellence for management and finance education in Sri Lanka. Living up to this commitment of national and international significance, the Faculty of Management and Finance embarked on planning for a major re-structuring program in late 1990s. The basic thrust of this strategic initiative was to incorporate disciplinary rigor, business practicality and skill development into the curriculum, thus exploring the avenues for building mutually beneficial and collaborative links between the Faculty and the industry.

In its historical evolution, the Faculty of Management and Finance reached yet another juncture in May 2007. Putting the re-structuring plan into practice, two academic departments which were in existence for many years were abolished and six new academic departments were established, such as:

• Department of Accounting
• Department of Business Economics
• Department of Finance
• Department of Human Resources Management
• Department of International Business
• Department of Management and Organization Studies
• Department of Marketing

This intra-faculty institutional development has provided its undergraduates with the opportunity and resources for specializing in different fields of study including Accounting, Business Economics, Finance, Hospitality and Leisure Management, Human Resources Management and Marketing. Alternatively, undergraduates can opt to read for a degree program which draws upon knowledge from all these specializations/disciplines and aims at covering a broader perspective of business administration. To incorporate current trends in the corporate sector the faculty introduced two new academic programmes, namely BBA in International Business and BBA in Management and Organization Studies in 2009. The faculty has taken all these initiatives with a view to producing employable graduates aligned with the needs of the business world.