Management and Labour Studies

Today’s business environment, characterized by rapid change, knowledge explosion, technological advancement and intense competition, has given birth to a serious psychological menace in terms of work exhaustion. This article analyzes the antecedents of work exhaustion among employees working in banks. It is based on the structured survey through a questionnaire with frontline bank employees working in Ludhiana. A comparative study of bank employees working in public and private sector banks has also been made with respect to various organizational variables influencing work exhaustion. The results indicate that the strain arising from managing a professional career and family responsibilities results in a lot of stress for the bank employees. The findings have significant implications for the employers in terms of retaining a consistent workforce by revising its work schedules and introducing family-friendly policies to accommodate the personal roles and responsibilities of bank employees.

The present study attempts to identify the various determinants of Quality of Work Life (QWL), and the level of QWL among the veterinary doctors of Punjab. The factor analysis of 45 variables yielded 13 job characteristics of which ‘Monetary Consideration’, ‘Social Relations at Work’, ‘Constitutionalism at Work’, ‘Pride in Job’, ‘Facilitation for Current Performance and Future Growth’, ‘Security and Safety’, ‘Fair and Unbiased Attitude of Top Officials’, ‘Space and Infrastructure’, ‘Diagnostic Facilities and Staff’ and ‘Reporting’, have been found associated positively and significantly with QWL. ‘Nature of Job’ has been found negatively and significantly related with QWL, whereas ‘Innovative and Challenging Job’ and ‘Less Educated and Ignorant Clients’ have not been found linked with QWL. The respondents were found to experience moderate to high levels of QWL.

Multiple theoretical linkages are developed for High Performance Work System (HPWS). This model explores the HR system, its links with performance and performance outcomes based on the direction given by Guest (1997). This article attempts to provide three pathways for effect of HPWS on performance—first through direct effect on employee’s skill and ability, second through system effect produced by creation of organizational climate through internal fit, and lastly, interaction effect produced by strategic context through external fit. Further performance of organization is considered as employee level outcomes, organizational level outcomes and financial level outcomes.

Work engagement is generally accepted to have three factors: vigour, dedication and absorption. I studied whether this three-factor model is valid for India. 182 Indian working professionals completed the 9-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three factor model may not be appropriate for India. Instead, it may be more appropriate to consider work engagement as a single-factor construct for India. Further analyses showed that the single-factor model is invariant across gender, organizational tenure and dyadic duration, but varies across age groups. It may indicate the need to consider culture as a boundary condition for work engagement.

Extant research has established that perceptions of justice in the organizational arena lead to desirable employee attitudes and behaviours. However, there seems to be a paucity of research exploring how social exchange variables act as mechanisms linking justice perceptions with their output. The present research is therefore a small step towards bridging this gap by examining the role of a social exchange variable, Organizational Trust (Trust), as mediating the relationship between each of the three Organizational Justice dimensions: Distributive (DJ), Procedural (PJ) and Interactional Justice (IJ), and an organizational level outcome (Affective Organizational Commitment - OC). The study finds that PJ and IJ does not have any significant relationship with Trust and only the relation between DJ and OC is fully mediated by Trust. Further, there is no interaction effect of the three justice dimensions upon Trust.

The study concludes with a discussion regarding the findings, the limitations under which it has been conducted, and its implications for management practice.

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively investigate how interpersonal cultural encounters in daily lives make individuals culturally competent at workplace. Using in-depth interviews of Indian working executives, I conducted an inquiry to arrive at my findings. The findings suggest that cultural encounters in work as well as non-work settings influence cultural competence at workplace. Especially, the role of family-based encounters was found to be significant. Contribution of this study towards the scholarship on cross-cultural management and future scope for research are discussed.

The heterogeneity in view about the financial inclusion prevails across the globe. Since the need of financial products varies from individual to individual and country to country (Kempson and Whyley, 1999; Regan and Paxton, 2003; Speak and Graham, 2000). But, majority of researchers and thinkers opine that ‘financial inclusion is the easy availability of all banking services at an affordable cost, reasonable time & adequate quantity to all needy people and which should also be available in appropriate forms’ (broader sense); ‘financial inclusion includes the easy access of all people to the minimum basic financial services’ (narrow sense). The determinants and impacts of financial inclusion are main ingredients of the article. The depth ratio emerged as leading contributor in the value of financial inclusion index among all the three variables—depth or penetration, availability and usage—across the world, including Indian states, through the log-linear regression model. The study further indicated that a 1 per cent increase in the financial inclusion led to on an average 0.142 per cent increase in the value of human development index (cross-country data); while in case of Indian states, it resulted into 0.139 per cent increase in the index. The depth, availability and usages ratios were found to be inversely associated to the poverty. The study found only three states of India in between high financial inclusion position, while remaining 90 per cent states belong to very low/weak financial inclusion status. On the basis of findings of the study, it is suggested that the policy makers around the globe should strive to surge the level of financial inclusion for an optimal, sustainable, inclusive economic growth and development of the economies by focusing on removing the regional imbalances.

Warner W. Burke, Organization Change: Theory and Practice, 3rd edition. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2012, pp. 362. ₹ 395.