The Information Technology (IT) industry is rapidly expanding and significantly contributing to the growth of the Indian economy. At the same time, it is bringing new problems to its employees, adversely impacting the quality of their work life. Employers in these industries are also facing formidable challenges in attracting and retaining the talented and skilled human resource. HR managers in these industries are constantly striving to find innovative ways for building and nurturing functional and enjoyable working environment for their employees, simultaneously aiming at alleviating their sufferings from work life imbalance, excessively demanding roles, and highly stressful work situations, thereby enhancing their organizational commitment. This issue carries four research papers on IT and associated industries, related to psychological contract, HR challenges, stress, social support, job attitudes, job outcome, and e-recruitment, and one on job satisfaction among academics, besides a book review.

The issue opens with the paper titled "Psychological Contract and Employment Relationship", authored by Harold Andrew Patrick. Psychological contract refers to mutual unwritten expectations that exist between an employee and his/her employer regarding policies and practices in their organization. Psychological contract deeply influences the job attitudes and performance of the employees. Relational contract, transactional contract, employer's commitment/obligation to employee, employee's commitment/obligation to employer, employer's relationship with employee, and employee's relationship with employer were measured on 202 employees from 15 IT companies. The study presents the implications of psychological contracts for IT companies to facilitate harnessing of energy, knowledge and creativity of employees for competitive advantage.

Authored by C Omprakash, Mohd. Afaq Khan and K S Gupta, the second paper titled "HR Challenges in Business Transformation Outsourcing", explains the new phenomenon called Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO) in the IT industry. The paper elucidates the major challenges faced in Human Resource Management (HRM) by the BTO organizations and presents appropriate solutions for some of these challenges.

The third paper titled "Stress, Social Support, Job Attitudes and Job Outcome across Gender", is authored by Niharika Gaan. Role ambiguity, role conflict, work overload, supervisory support, team support, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention across gender were studied among 240 Information Systems professionals. It was found that women experience higher role ambiguity and supervisory support. Team support, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention do not differ across gender. The study points out that information system industry represents equal opportunity employers who do not discriminate against women, providing them even higher supervisory support.

Authored by Lakhwinder Singh and Leenu Narang, the fourth paper titled "Behavioral Revelation Concerning E-Recruitments", examines the perceptions of job seekers about e-recruitments and their behavior towards them. A majority of the survey participants (100 students from Guru Nanak Dev University) held positive perceptions about various aspects of web recruitment. They were more inclined towards using corporate websites than job boards for sending their job applications.

The fifth paper titled "Job Satisfaction Among Academics", is authored by Bani Kochar. It studies the dynamics of job satisfaction among 24 faculty members in three selected institutions under IU. Job satisfaction manifests as three meta dimensions, i.e., `balance', combining three dimensions for prevention of dissatisfaction (working environment, pay, and cooperation of peers) and four dimensions for enforcement of motivation (delegation of work, opportunity for growth, delegation of authority, and opportunity for advancement); `commensuration' representing higher rewards for higher level of stress; and `security', meaning job security. The study throws light on how to enhance job satisfaction among academics.

The issue closes with a review by Gaurav Singh Solanki and Rishu Roy of the book titled When You Are Sinking Become a Submarine: Winning Through Wisdom and Creativity, authored by Pavan Choudary and published by Wisdom Press in 2006. The review highlights, as presented in the book, the saga of the Naïve and the Vile—the two kinds of people we come across in the world of power and politics. Only the end matters for the Vile. Means is as important as the end for the Naïve. The book shows how the Naïve can ultimately win over the Vile.

- Avinash Kumar Srivastav
Consulting Editor