Retail Banking in India has fast emerged as one of the major drivers of the overall banking industry and has witnessed phenomenal growth in the recent past. It has to be developed in the Indian way as the needs of the Indian customers are different. The paper, "Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction and Their Relative Importance in the Retail Banking Sector: An Empirical Study", by Anubhav Anand Mishra, tries to identify the factors (or relationship dimensions) that are responsible for satisfying the customers and which enable in the assessment of the influencing power of these factors with regard to AX bank. The major findings of this study conclude that core banking and the convenience are the vital factors which satisfy a customer.

In an industry, there are always affiliated (or ancillary) and stand-alone firms. Some times due to over dependence on the mother industry, the affiliated firms lose their initiatives, independence and the value addition. In this context, Saptarishi Purkayastha, in the paper, "Performance of Affiliated and Stand-Alone Firms: A Cross-Sectional Study", conducted a comparative study on the performance of affiliated and stand-alone firms in the automobile sector. Different parameters such as profitability, earnings per share, dividend per share, net worth etc., have been considered to assess the performance of these firms. The paper concludes that in automobile sector, firms' affiliation to a Business Group does have a significant effect and it helps in increasing the performance of a firm.

Work life and personal life are the two sides of the same coin. A flourishing economy has resulted in more jobs and salaries especially in the Information Technology (IT) sector. But this has brought in long work schedules, leaving individuals with very little time for their personal life. In this context, Amita Singh in the paper, "A Study on the Perception of Work-Life Balance Policies Among Software Professionals", focuses on software professionals, for whom the boundary between work and life is generally thought to be distorted. The study presents the insights and implications for the management of Information Technology/Information Technology Enabled Services (IT/ITES)-based organizations, enabling them to improve their WLB policies, and hence, improve the quality of work and life.

Organizational effectiveness considerably depends on the morale of its work force. N Karhirvel, in the paper, "A Study on the Morale of Employees with Reference to Textile Industries in Coimbatore", presents the identification of levels of satisfaction in the textile industries with regard to the factors contributing to morale of the employees. The study focuses on the assessment of factors that have direct impact on morale. It also studies the relationship between those factors and their influence on the satisfaction of employees. The research gives a clear impression that the majority of the respondents opined that good working conditions, welfare facilities and the workers participation in management influence the productivity and morale of the employees.

-- K Rajanath
Consulting Editor