This issue consists of four articles addressing diverse areas of research in
organizational behavior with a blend of both conceptual proposition and empirical
investigation. The broad areas that the scholars have contributed to are: diversity, cyberloafing, employee engagement and work-family culture. These varied areas of research are proof of the complex nature of the organizations and the complexity of the interaction between individual attitude and behavior and organizational aspects that lead to organizational performance.
The first paper, “Diversity Scholarship and Impact on Performance: Research Synthesis and Future Directions for Theory Building”, by Roshni Das, theoretically synthesizes the existing literature on workplace diversity. Through extensive literature review, the author has explored the various conceptualizations of diversity and its impact on performance. The author has classified diversity types based on levels (surface and deep), diversity cluster that represents a degree of sharing in the mindset of team members and goal orientation. The author has also classified performance outcomes into several types and suggests that different diversity types could have differential impact on the outputs. The author has identified the mediators and moderators to the impact of diversity on performance. The paper contributes significantly to the existing literature on diversity and performance by extensive review of literature and by proposing a conceptual model that gives scope to researchers to empirically investigate the proposed framework in future.
The second paper, “Cyberloafing: The Di(sguised)gital Way of Loafing on the Job”, by Brinda Sampat and Pooja A Basu, through a conceptual proposition highlights the impact of cyber loafing on performance. The paper contributes significantly to the existing literature as much attention is being paid by scholars to this relatively recent phenomenon of cyberloafing. The authors, through an exhaustive literature review, have pointed out the fact that the impact of cyberloafing on performance is both positive and detrimental in nature. The paper first aims at understanding the concept of cyberloafing and establishing its definition. The authors also determine the antecedents and consequences to cyberloafing. Based on the literature review, the authors have classified cyberloafing into disruptive, recreational, and learning types, and based on the degree of use, major and minor types of cyberloafing activity. Individual and organizational level factors have been identified by the authors. The nature of the consequences of cyberloafing on performance is dependent on the type of cyberloafing activity. The paper gives ample scope for researchers to further test the conceptual model.
The third paper, “The Influence of Employee Engagement on the Work-Life Balance of Employees in the IT Sector”, by Sarjue Pandita and Ritesh Singhal, highlights the relationship between employee engagement and work-life balance. The study especially focuses on the employees of IT sector in India. The authors have adapted a multidimensional approach to employee engagement as constituting three dimensions of vigor, absorption and dedication. The study provides a detailed descriptive analysis of work-life balance of the employees of the IT sector. The results from the study point to an interesting finding that employee engagement has no relationship with work-life balance. The authors argue that increased employee engagement leads to decrease in work-life balance. This finding can further be tested to include more sample size and also across sectors.
The last paper, “The Role of Work-Family Culture and Personality Traits in Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) of First-Level Managerial Personnel”, by A P Singh, Vinod Kumar Gupta, Anand Prakash Dubey and Anoop Kumar Singh, investigates the role of work-family culture and personality in OCB. The authors have conducted the study on middle-level managers of public sector insurance agency in India. The authors have adopted a multidimensional approach to work-family culture, which consists of three dimensions: managerial support, negative career consequence and organizational time demand. The paper contributes significantly to the concept of work-family culture and its impact on organizational behavior.
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.
