This issue deals with three topics: recruiting and retaining scientists in educational institutions, intellectual stimulation and job commitment, and emotional intelligence and its relationship with work-life balance.
In the first paper, “Recruiting and Retaining the Best Scientists: A Researcher’s Perspective”, the authors Lisa Böhm and Robert A Phillips, start with a broad scope saying that highly skilled individuals (scientists) are key actors in regional development and that several studies have shown a strong correlation between the presence of highly skilled individuals and prosperous industries, especially in the area of high technology sector. This is of high importance even to universities and institutions as they have to compete with other universities for the highly skilled scientists, and in the age of globalization, the competition has become even more intense. And, it is in this context that the authors have examined the issue of recruiting and retaining best scientists. Using semi-structured interviews with recently appointed excellent young researchers based in UK, USA, and Germany, the authors have classified a variety of professional and personal factors that are taken into account by these excellent young researchers when they join a particular institution of higher learning. For example, excellence of research was cited as an important professional factor, while stability of children’s schooling was cited as an important personal factor for joining a particular institution. The study lends itself towards understanding the key motives of young researchers for choosing an institution.
The second paper, “Intellectual Stimulation and Job Commitment: A Study of IT Professionals”, by K T Anjali and D Anand, examines the importance of intellectual stimulation and its importance to job commitment of employees. Job commitment as a topic has been widely researched in the past and a majority of the studies have associated job commitment with other attitudinal variables like job satisfaction, organizational citizenship commitment, job involvement, etc. Since this study looks at intellectual stimulation as a factor that could be linked to organizational commitment, it makes sense especially with reference to knowledge workers. Though IT industry happens to be a part of the so-called knowledge industry, much of the work, especially at the lower levels of the value chain, tends to be routine work and can get monotonous at times. In such a situation, the presence or absence of intellectually stimulating factors can make a difference for the better or worse to the commitment levels of employees. This is something that has been examined empirically in this paper and the findings of the paper suggest that in the presence of intellectually stimulating factors, employees feel more content with their jobs and their commitment to the job is stronger.
The final paper, “Exploring the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Work-Life Balance in the Service Industry”, by Monoshree Mahanta, explores the relationship between emotional intelligence and work-life balance. Again, emotional intelligence and work-life balance have been studied independently earlier and most of the research in this area tends to relate emotional intelligence with managerial and leadership effectiveness or to different personality constructs, whereas studies in the area of work-life balance tends to examine the impact of different biographical factors on work-life balance or the impact of perceived work-life balance on various outcome variables at the individual and organizational levels such as job satisfaction, commitment, performance and productivity. In this paper, the author has explored the relationship between emotional intelligence and work-life balance. The objective is to find out whether the dimensions of work-life balance vary with different levels of emotional intelligence. The findings of the study indicate that there are statistically significant differences amongst employees with high, moderate and low levels of emotional intelligence on some of the dimensions of work-life balance. The paper concludes that employees with higher emotional intelligence have a higher perception of work-life balance as compared to those with low emotional intelligence.
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.
