This issue deals with contemporary topics such as customer service in banks, assessment of management training needs of agricultural research managers, social entrepreneurship and the characteristics of a social entrepreneur, high cost of finance in microcredit business in Andhra Pradesh, and a conceptual model of transformational leadership, organizational culture and organizational effectiveness for NGOs in the Indian context.

Banks are looking for more and more interaction with customers to build their customer relationship. But to deliver an improved and in-depth understanding of customer wants and needs, a fully integrated customer management system is required along with complete transparency. In the emerging market scenario, for survival and growth, it is crucial for a bank to align its vision, mission, goals, and objectives with customers' satisfaction. R K Uppal and Rimpi Kaur, in the paper, "Customer Service in Banks: An Empirical Study", analyze the responses of 768 customers of public sector banks, Indian private sector banks and foreign banks (each one from these groups) operating in Amritsar district of Punjab. The authors infer that there is a significant difference among the three bank groups with regard to the time taken for customers to transact a business.

With agriculture becoming globally competitive in the post-WTO era and with the advent of intellectual property protection, planning and management of agricultural research have gained more urgency and importance than ever before. In order to design and develop a need-based management training program for agricultural research managers that would help them plan, manage, and execute research programs and institutional activities more effectively with the available human, natural, and financial resources, a systematic training needs assessment was undertaken. In the paper, "Assessment of Management Training Needs of Agricultural Research Managers", the authors P Manikandan and M M Anwer, focus on the importance of management training for agricultural research managers. The authors opine that the results of the study would facilitate planning, organizing, monitoring, controlling, and evaluating a need-based management training program for the agricultural research managers.

Social entrepreneurs are those rare breed of leaders who search for change, respond to it and exploit it as an opportunity to develop new business models for the social empowerment. Social entrepreneurs identify the problems in society, trace the root causes of the problems and endeavor to solve them. Through this approach, they try to use their entrepreneurial abilities to bring about social change. They assess their success in terms of the impact of their efforts on society. Vasudha Vasakarla, in the paper, "A Study on Social Entrepreneurship and the Characteristics of Social Entrepreneurs", studies the concept of social entrepreneurship in general and the characteristics of social entrepreneurs in particular, and highlights the behavioral traits possessed by these rare set of leaders.

The microfinance industry has recently been criticized for its oppressive style of functioning which allegedly has caused hardships to the credit seekers in some districts of Andhra Pradesh. The main reason for such incidences was said to be the high rates of interest and the marketing (especially collection) tactics adopted by the MFIs. In the paper, "High Cost of Finance in Microcredit Business in Andhra Pradesh (India): Problems and Possible Solutions", Anand studies the actual reasons behind the hardships faced by MFIs' clients, reasons for the high cost of capital, causes of inefficiency in operations which have increased the cost of credit further, and the problems with the current marketing strategy and other related areas. The author analyzes all the aspects of microfinance as present in Andhra Pradesh (India) and tries to find possible solutions.

Transformational leadership and organizational culture are crucial components of the effective functioning of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). But the interplay among transformational leadership, organizational culture, and organizational effectiveness is not well understood and very little research has been done to explore the relationships among these concepts. M S A Mahalinga Shiva and Santanu Roy, in the article, "A Conceptual Model of Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture and Organizational Effectiveness for NGOs in the Indian Context", propose a conceptual model that tries to portray the relationships among the concepts of transformational leadership, organizational culture, and organizational effectiveness in the context of NGOs working in India.

- T R K Rao
Consulting Editor