This issue presents papers on Profiling the OCTAPACE Culture: An Empirical Study of Banking and IT Sectors in India; Determinants of Price Rigidity: The Role of Psychological Prices, Price Changes and Sales Promotions; HRD practices among Indian commercial banks; Internet Uses and Gratifications Structure; and Stress in Organizational Roles: Individual and Organizational Implications.

Organizational culture is hypothesized as playing a decisive role in the development of a unique corporate identity. This unique identity provides organizations with the opportunity to attain strategic leadership. Feza Tabassum Azmi and Richa Sharma, in the paper, "Profiling the OCTAPACE Culture: An Empirical Study of Banking and IT Sectors in India", compare the organizational culture of companies in the IT and banking sectors in India. The study is based on the concept of OCTAPACE culture—an acronym for Openness, Confrontation, Trust, Authenticity, Proaction, Autonomy, Collaboration and Experimentation.

M S Balaji and Srividya Raghavan, in the paper, "Determinants of Price Rigidity: The Role of Psychological Prices, Price Changes and Sales Promotions", focus on the study of price rigidity which has received considerable attention from both economists and marketers in the last few years as the variations in price are considered crucial for understanding price adjustments. Rigid prices resist changes in market movements and thus can affect a firm's profitability. Various theories have been proposed to explain price rigidity or price adjustment. The paper studies the influence of psychological pricing or price rigidity for breakfast cereals in the Dominick's retail chain in the US. It provides additional evidence to support the theory that psychological pricing leads to price rigidity.

B Vijila Kennedy, in the paper, "Do HRD Practices Differ Among the Categories of Indian Commercial Banks?", avers that human resource being increasingly recognized as a prime source of strategic advantage and the need for its effective development is, therefore, more important than ever before. The author focuses on the differences in HRD practices among select bank categories in Coimbatore.

Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory in mass communications research guides the assessment of consumer motivations for media usage and access. Sanjit Kumar Roy, in the paper, "Internet Uses and Gratifications Structure", states that the theory has been used to identify the U&G for radio, television, cable television, and for the Internet in America and Europe. This paper empirically derives the Internet U&G in India. The study focuses on the gratification structure of males and females separately. The differences between light and heavy users of the Internet are examined based on the gratification structure obtained.

Avinash Kumar Srivastav, in the paper, "Stress in Organizational Roles: Individual and Organizational Implications", focuses on the problems commonly encountered in role performance which often give rise to stress, depending on the coping skills and resources of the role occupant. The paper explains the concept, framework, types, and measurement of role stress. It brings out that each role stressor is the result of specific problems faced by the role occupant and the identification of prominent role stressor(s) has important implications for the individuals and the organization.

- T R K Rao
Consulting Editor