The concept of corporate social responsibility is gaining importance nowadays. It calls upon businesses to follow ethical practices while dealing with various people including the employees, suppliers, dealers, customers, etc. Unfortunately, all the companies are not equally committed towards their social responsibility. We repeatedly hear about various scams taking place in the business world. In this backdrop, creation of awareness among the youth regarding corporate social responsibility is necessary. The youth of today is the driving force of tomorrow. The paper, “Attitude of the Youth Towards Corporate Social Responsibility in India: A Study of Jalandhar District”, by Rajan Sharma and Megha Sharma, is an attempt to understand the attitude of the youth towards the concept of corporate social responsibility. The data has been collected on the basis of 46 queries relevant to the required information and it has been analyzed with the help of factor analysis. The effort is towards finding the minimum number of factors that, if incorporated by the business in its day-to-day operations, can make it socially responsible as well as socially acceptable in the true sense.

Quite a number of management education institutes have evolved in a short span of time in the recent past. Most institutes use Management Aptitude Test (MAT) scores for the selection of candidates. It was observed in many instances during group discussions and personal interviews that people with poor MAT scores did better than the candidates with higher MAT score. In this backdrop, Rituraj Kumar has made a correlational study of the scores of MBA students in the paper, “Correlation Study of MAT Score, IQ and GPA of MBA Students”. The results indicate that although there is a strong relationship between the chosen variables, namely, MAT score, IQ and GPA, MAT score is, in fact, a poor predictor of Intellectual Ability (IQ) and it is not a very reliable indicator of academic achievement (Grade Point Average (GPA)) either.

The BPO industry has expanded rapidly over the past few years, but it is not able to sustain its employees for a long time due to differing shift timings and monotonous work. Hence, the role of management in retaining the employees is immense. In the light of this, Anupama Dullo Raina and M G Shahnawaz, in their paper, “An Exploratory Study of Managerial Motivation in the BPO Industry”, have made an attempt to find out why some employees are more (or less) satisfied than others in terms of their affective response to the company they are working for. Specifically, they examined the role of certain dimensions of organizational climate as ‘predictors’ of company satisfaction. The study states that scope for advancement and wage benefits are the most important predictors of company satisfaction.

Human resource is one of the most vital assets of an organization. It handles all physical and financial resources in an organization. Without its efforts, the non-human resources remain idle. The sugar industry plays a very significant role in the development of rural areas. The economy of western Maharashtra and its vicinity is highly influenced by the sugar industries situated in this area. The paper, “A Critical Study of Human Resource Practices in Selected Sugar Factories”, by A M Gurav and Pralhad Krishna Mudalkar, examines the role of human resource workforce and its contribution to the development of the sugar industry. It also examines the role of human resource practices adopted by the selected sugar factories from cooperative and private sectors.

-- K Rajanath
Consulting Editor