Qualifications

Profile

Wajira Dassanayake is a passionate and a talented educator with more than thirty years of teaching experience in tertiary education institutions.

After completing the Bachelor of Arts (Economics honours) degree from the University of Colombo in 1986, Wajira was employed as a lecturer in the same University. In 1997, he moved to New Zealand. He started his teaching career in New Zealand at WITT in 1997. In 2001, he moved to Auckland and joined Unitec Institute of Technology; first as a part time lecturer [2001- mid 2003 (during this period he also worked at AUT)] and subsequently Unitec has employed him as a Senior Academic Staff Member.

Wajira coordinators and lecturers in Research Methods (on the Master of Business and Master of International Communication degree programmes), Financial Risk Management, International Finance and Research Practice (on the Bachelor of Business degree programme). He has also taught many other papers (Business Statistics, Principles of Finance, Business Finance, Economic Principles, Accounting Principles, Quantitative Business Methods and International Trade and Finance).

At present he is the Academic Leader of Bachelor of Business degree and the Moodle Champion at Applied Business School, Unitec. He has also performed as the Research Leader and served as a member of the BBus programme committee.

Wajira is experienced in theory, research and practice, and he integrates these in his teaching. He can be described as an innovative, deeply committed passionate lecturer and an avid researcher with multiple publications.

Presently, he is studying for his Doctor of Computing (DComp) degree. His research interest focuses on Computational Finance, Market Microstructure, Derivative Markets and Portfolio Management.

Publications

Townsend, R., Stewart, J., & Dassanayake, W. (2022). MPI Contract C0033319 Project: Analysis on Deemed Values under Greater Transparency Rules Part A: Deemed Values in the New Zealand Context. Confidential Report to Ministry of Fishers, Ministry of Fishers (Vol. C0033319).

Dassanayake, W. (2022). Critical comparison of statistical and deep learning models applied to the New Zealand Stock Market Index. Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand.

HEWAGAMA, G., & DASSANAYAKE, W. (2022). Determinants of Environmental Reporting in the Top 50 New Zealand Listed Companies. New Zealand Journal of Applied Business Research (Vol. 18(1)).

Dassanayake, W., Hewagama, G., & Kirk, S. (2021). Asynchronous Instructional Videos During COVID-19 Emergency Remote Teaching: Student Experiences Within a New Zealand ITP. Unitec ePress (Vol. PAPER SERIES 2/2021).

Dassanayake, W., Ardekani, I., Gamage, N., Jayawardena, ., & Sharifzadeh, H. (2021). Effectiveness of Stock Index Forecasting using ARIMA model: Evidence from New Zealand. In 2021 3rd International Conference on Advancements in Computing (ICAC).

Dassanayake, W. (2020). EFFECTIVENESS OF STOCK INDEX FORECASTING USING ARIMA MODEL: EVIDENCE FROM NEW ZEALAND. Unitec Research Symposium 2020, 180-B001.

Dassanayake, W. (2020). EFFECTIVENESS OF STOCK INDEX FORECASTING USING LSTM MODEL: EVIDENCE FROM NEW ZEALAND. Unitec Research Symposium 2020, 180-B001.

Dassanayake, W., ARDEKANI, I., JAYAWARDENA, C., SHARIFZADEH, H., & GAMAGE, N. (2020). FORECASTING ACCURACY OF HOLT-WINTERS EXPONENTIAL SMOOTHING: EVIDENCE FROM NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand Journal of Applied Business Research (Vol. 17 (1)).

Wijesinghe, K. G. N., Bandara, R. M. S., Dassanayake, W., & Undugoda, M. (2020). The impact of corporate governance on firm value: Evidence from listed manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Accounting & Business Finance (IJABF) (Vol. Volume 5 - Issue 2).

Bandara, R. M. S., Wijesinghe, K. G. N., Dassanayake, W., & Undugoda, M. (2019). The impact of corporate governance on firm value: Evidence from listed manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka. 5th International Conference for Accounting Researcher and Educators (ICARE), University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

Dassanayake, W., Jayawardena, C., Ardekani, I., & Sharifzadeh, H. (2019). Models Applied in Stock Market Prediction: A Literature Survey. Unitec ePress Research Report Series (Vol. 1).

Rainsbury, L., Van Dyk, D., Hay, D., & Dassanayake, W. (2019). The Impact of Audit Quality Reviews on Audit fees of New Zealand Listed Companies. AFAANZ 2019 Conference, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Dassanayake, W. (2017). Scalable hybrid model for stock index prediction. National Conference on Technology and Management, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Dassanayake, W., & Jayawardena, C. (2017). Determinants of Stock Market Index Movements; Evidence from New Zealand Stock Market. National Conference on Technology and Management, Colombo, Sri Lanka (Vol. Volume 6).

Dassanayake, W. (2017). A scalable multi-step hybrid model for stock index prediction. Unitec Research Symposium, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.

Dassanayake, W. (2017). A scalable multi-step hybrid model for stock index prediction. Unitec Research Symposium, 2017, Unitec.

De Costa, G. S., & Dassanayake, W. (2016). Estimation of Impact of Sea Level Rise on Land and Water Resources When Data Is Sparse - Case of Colombo. Environment and Ecology Research (Vol. 4(5)).
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/3548

Dassanayake, W., & Poskitt, R. (2015). Modelling the lowballing of the LIBOR fixing. International Review of Financial Analysis Journal (Vol. 42).

Dassanayake, W., Li, X., & Buhr, K. (2015). A revisit of price discovery dynamics across Australia and New Zealand. Unitec ePress Research Report Series, Unitec ePress Research Report Series (3) (Vol. 3).
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/2990

Oldfield, J., Dassanayake, W., and Kearns, N. (2014). Perceptions of the rise of mobile learning in a business degree. Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) Conference, 23-26 November, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Oldfield, J., Rainsbury, E., Slessor, A., Dassanayake, W., and Coveny, R. (2014). iBus: Embedding mobile learning in a Bachelor of Business Programme. Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) Accounting Education Special Interest Group Symposium, Auckland, New Zealand.

Dassanayake, W., Li, X., and Buhr, K. (2013). An investigation of the price discovery for cross-listed stocks: Evidence from New Zealand and Australian stock markets. Auckland Region Accounting (ARA) Conference, Auckland, New Zealand.

Dassanayake, W. (2012). An investigation of the price discovery for cross-listed stocks: Evidence from New Zealand and Australian stock markets. Unpublished Master of Finance thesis, Massey University.