This issue contains four papers. The first paper, “How Managers’ Emotional Intelligence Impacts Employees’ Satisfaction and Commitment: A Structural Equation Model”, by Kerry Webb, examines how managers’ emotional intelligence impacts employees’ satisfaction and commitment. Given that all the three constructs are multi-dimensional, the author effectively uses SEM to capture the various aspects of the relationship between the three variables and their dimensions. Another interesting aspect of this paper is, it includes respondents from various age groups, racial and ethnic background, and industries. On the whole, this paper contributes to the overall understanding of practices for creating a sustainable and high performing workplace as employee satisfaction and commitment are significant outcome variables, and any study that contributes to the understanding of employee satisfaction and commitment tends to get valued by scholars and practitioners alike.
The second paper, “The Relationship Between Breach of Psychological Contract and Workplace Deviant Behavior”, by Anwar Hussain, deals with the issue of psychological contract and workplace deviant behavior, specifically examining if the breach of psychological contract is related to the occurrence of workplace deviant behavior. The study was conducted in Pakistan and the underlying assumption made is that the IT industry in Pakistan is not doing well; it is because the employees lack commitment, and one of the reasons for this lack of commitment could be breach of psychological contract. The study shows that if there is a breach of psychological contract on the part of the employer, it leads to employees’ showing negative behavior and attitude, which results in reduced loyalty and decreased organizational commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), culminating in instances of workplace deviant behavior.
The third paper, “An Introspection of Employee Engagement: A Quantitative Content Analysis Approach”, by Shiv Kumar Sharma and Sukhmeet Kaur, deals with the topic of employee engagement, which is largely researched as a determinant of organizational success and employee retention. Because of its impact on organizational success and employee retention, the topic of employee engagement tends to draw a lot of attention from researchers and academicians. As a result, the construct of employee engagement over the years has been defined and examined variously by different scholars. Despite the differences in defining this construct, a majority of the scholars agree with the fact that employee engagement is a multi-dimensional construct. This paper attempts to collate and put together different dimensions of employee engagement using quantitative content analysis. The outcome of this exercise suggests that psychological investment and work role performances are the most frequently occurring dimensions used for measuring employee engagement.
The last paper, “Overcoming Obstacles to Career Advancement: A Study of Female Executives in India’s Service Sector”, by Akanksha Anand, focuses on the ways to overcome the obstacles to career advancement of women executives in India’s service sector. The reason for conducting this study is that there has not been much research on women in management and especially women at senior levels. It is also known that though women managers easily occupy entry and middle level managerial positions, they tend to encounter challenges when it comes to making it to the senior management levels. This paper first tries to classify the barriers that seem to be preventing women managers from reaching the top in terms of societal, organizational and individual level barriers and then goes on to suggest organizational policies that can be adopted by the HR departments to overcome some of these obstacles.
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs): The Changing Face of Banking in India
Bank Management
Information and communication technology has changed the way in which banks provide services to its customers. These days the customers are able to perform their routine banking transactions without even entering the bank premises. ATM is one such development in recent years, which provides remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the development of this self-service banking in India based on the secondary data.
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing a very important role in the progress and advancement in almost all walks of life. The deregulated environment has provided an opportunity to restructure the means and methods of delivery of services in many areas, including the banking sector. The ICT has been a focused issue in the past two decades in Indian banking. In fact, ICTs are enabling the banks to change the way in which they are functioning. Improved customer service has become very important for the very survival and growth of banking sector in the reforms era. The technological advancements, deregulations, and intense competition due to the entry of private sector and foreign banks have altered the face of banking from one of mere intermediation to one of provider of quick, efficient and customer-friendly services. With the introduction and adoption of ICT in the banking sector, the customers are fast moving away from the traditional branch banking system to the convenient and comfort of virtual banking. The most important virtual banking services are phone banking, mobile banking, Internet banking and ATM banking. These electronic channels have enhanced the delivery of banking services accurately and efficiently to the customers. The ATMs are an important part of a bank’s alternative channel to reach the customers, to showcase products and services and to create brand awareness. This is reflected in the increase in the number of ATMs all over the world. ATM is one of the most widely used remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the growth of ATMs of different bank groups in India.
International Scenario
If ATMs are largely available over geographically dispersed areas, the benefit from using an ATM will increase as customers will be able to access their bank accounts from any geographic location. This would imply that the value of an ATM network increases with the number of available ATM locations, and the value of a bank network to a customer will be determined in part by the final network size of the banking system. The statistical information on the growth of branches and ATM network in select countries.
Indian Scenario
The financial services industry in India has witnessed a phenomenal growth, diversification and specialization since the initiation of financial sector reforms in 1991. Greater customer orientation is the only way to retain customer loyalty and withstand competition in the liberalized world. In a market-driven strategy of development, customer preference is of paramount importance in any economy. Gone are the days when customers used to come to the doorsteps of banks. Now the banks are required to chase the customers; only those banks which are customercentric and extremely focused on the needs of their clients can succeed in their business today.
