As it has been the case with the past few issues, the research papers in this issue too do not fall under a particular theme but what is common amongst all the four research papers is that they are all well-researched and well-documented and make an interesting reading. The first paper, “Effects of Distributive and Procedural Justice Perceptions on Managerial Pay and Job Satisfaction” by Shahina Javad and Premarajan deals with the relationship between two multidimensional constructs: organizational justice and satisfaction. Though the concept of justice has been borrowed from philosophical and political literature, the concept of organizational justice over the past few decades has emerged as an important determinant of employee attitudes. This paper, in particular, examines the effects of distributive and procedural justice perceptions on managerial pay and job satisfaction. It not only looks at the independent effect of distributive and procedural justice perceptions on dimensions of pay and job satisfaction but also makes use of an interaction effect model to examine the interaction effect of distributive and procedural justice on the outcome variables (managerial pay and job satisfaction). Based on the survey of Indian managers, the findings of the study suggest that distributive justice perception is a significant predictor of pay satisfaction and job satisfaction as it accounted for greater variance in the outcome variables as compared to procedural justice.

The second paper, “Correlates of Work Autonomy” by S F Chandra Sekhar deals with the topic of work autonomy. Since the publication of the job characteristics model in the 1970s, work autonomy has been seen as an important job characteristic and a prerequisite for not only employee motivation but also for many other individually and organizationally relevant outcome variables, such as performance, participation, satisfaction and commitment to organization. What is interesting about this paper is its treatment of the concept of work autonomy. Work autonomy was initially treated as an unidimensional construct and it was only in the 1990s that researchers started identifying the dimensions of work autonomy based on the felt need that it would not only lead to improved theory building but would also lead to design of effective intervention strategies for job redesign.

The third paper, “Personality as a Predictor of Personal Growth Initiative” by Santosh Kumar Sharma, Pooja Garg and Renu Rastogi deals with Personal Growth Initiative (PGI) as a construct, belongs to the domain of positive psychology and not much empirical research has been carried out in this area. PGI, as a construct, deals with the idea of personal change—the active and intentional engagements one engages with the objective of changing and developing oneself. Based on the data collected from students, the findings of this empirical study indicate that Personality Type A is positively related to PGI, whereas Personality Type B is negatively related to PGI. Both these relationships are statistically significant. In a first of its kind, the paper provides initial evidences of the influence of Personality Type A/B on PGI. Since research work in the area of PGI is still in its nascent stages, there is a possibility of exploring this construct further and the need to do so have been identified in this paper.

The final paper, “The Influence of Select Demographic Characteristics on Surface Acting Behavior of Customer Service Personnel” by P David Jawahar and S N Raghavendra deals with the topic of surface acting behavior which is rooted in the literature on emotional labor. People engaged in customer servicing or customer facing roles tend to display emotions which are organizationally appropriate and in the process they sometime have to suppress their real emotions giving rise to a discrepancy between the felt and the expressed emotions. It is suggested by researchers that since employees have to modify their emotions to suit organizational requirements, they are able to do this either by surface acting or deep acting. Both of them require different strategies and have different impacts on the employees displaying the emotions. This study in particular examines the influence of some of the demographic characteristics on surface acting behavior of customer service personnel employed in a Central Government organization. The factor analysis carried out on the data collected from these employees suggests that the aspect of surface acting behaviors can be further classified into emotional masking and fake performance. The study was also able to establish that there were no variations in the display of surface acting behaviors based on any of the demographic variables considered in the study.

--Vivekanand
Consulting Editor