This issue has four articles dealing with topics like compensation, culture, information system, and workaholism. The first paper, “Mediating Effects of Job Demands on the Relationship Between Type A Personality and Workaholism: A Study on Turkish Workers” by Nil Selenay Erden, Duygu Toplu and M Murat Yaholu, examines the mediating effects of job demands on the relationship between Type A personality and workaholism. This study is done on Turkish workers and starts with highlighting the concerns of modern-day work environment where employees face demanding work due to increased competition and globalization. Moreover, in order to stand up to the challenges of rising competition, organizations need dedicated and committed employees; employees who can extend themselves and go beyond the call of duty. Such situations, where work boundaries, both in terms of work and time, are ill-defined and employees are expected to assume new and greater responsibilities to deal with the uncertainties of the globalized business world, are bound to create greater job demands on the employees. As work becomes more demanding, it is expected that Type A personality employees who tend to be more workaholic as compared to their counterparts (Type B personality employees) would thrive in such situations as they would be able to live up to the challenges of such intense work conditions. Going beyond this expected relationship between Type A personality and workaholism, what this study examines is the mediating effect of job demands between them.

The findings from the study suggest that job demands tend to act as a mediator between Type A personality and workaholism. Workaholism has been conceptualized as a positive phenomenon in this study and it is seen as a component of high performance at the individual level and of organizational success at the organizational level. The paper concludes by stating that individuals with Type A personality characteristics would work hard in high demanding jobs which would contribute to organizational success.

The second paper, “Status of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) in Universities and Affiliated Colleges in Hyderabad” by Sistla Samkarpad, looks at the status of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) implementation in educational institutions. Though the use of HRIS in the corporate world is widespread, this study tries to explore the extent to which HRIS is used in educational institutions. It also explores what benefits educational institutions have derived from HRIS and what could be the perceived barriers that prevent some educational institutions from benefitting from the use of HRIS. As stated in the study, information technology has become a critical resource today for businesses, and it is difficult to conceive of a modern-day business without an information system in place. The assumption behind this widespread use of information system is that it tends to facilitate human work in their day-to-day operations and provide them with easy access to information that could be used for making informed business decisions. Though the corporate world has clearly understood the benefits of implementing HRIS, the educational institutions are yet to realize this fact as not many educational institutions have implemented HRIS as indicated in this study. Though people realize the potential benefits of implementing HRIS, the commitment seems to be lacking.

The third paper, “A Study of OCTAPACE Culture in Civil Hospital, Gandhinagar” by Jallavi Panchamia, analyzes the work culture of a civil hospital using the OCTAPACE profile. OCTAPACE, which was developed by Dr. Udai Pareek, has been widely used in the corporate world for analyzing culture. To what extent the eight ethos, as represented in the acronym OCTAPACE, are valued by the members of the organization, indicates the culture of that organization. What makes this study interesting is that the business organizations tend to be governed by a different set of principles as opposed to hospitals. The uniqueness of hospitals lies in the fact that the working environment is unpleasant and the client system that one deals with is sick (unhealthy). This makes the working environment not only difficult to work but also demanding. It is expected that people who work in this environment would have a high sense of service. It would therefore be interesting to see what ethos would be valued in this kind of a work environment, and this is what the study tries to explore. Out of the eight values captured in OCTAPACE, collaboration and trust emerged as values that are highly valued by the employees working in hospital.

The final paper, “Use of Non-Financial Performance Measures in Managers’ Compensation Contracts as Earnings Management Constraints” by Amine Koubaa, Kolsi Med Chakib and Khammoussi Halioui, deals with the issue of using non-financial performance measures in manager’s compensation contracts. What is interesting to note in this paper is that the focus is on non-financial performance measures as compared to financial performance measures that invariably get linked to organizational performance. Moreover, this study is amongst one of the fewer studies which address directly the question of earnings management constraints as compared to earnings management motivation that largely gets reported. The paper focuses on answering the following question: Do non-financial performance measures in managers’ compensation contracts constrain opportunistic earnings management behavior? By using the data of annual compensation contracts and using multivariate regression analysis, the study concludes that use of non-financial performance measures in compensation contracts is a constraint on earnings management.

--Vivekanand
Consulting Editor