Retention of employees has become a critical issue in the corporate arena. With the increasing trend of frequent job switching among employees, it is a big challenge for HR Managers today to fulfill the aspirations of each and every employee and to bring congruence between organizational and individual goals. In the BPO sector of India where attrition rate is as high as 55 percent (ASSOCHAM, 2011), the situation is even more difficult for HR Managers. But the big question is how to make employees feel committed to their organizations especially in such a dynamic work environment where attrition rate is so high and job poaching is the order of the day. An extensive review of literature reveals that employees' ‘commitment‘ to the organization is a function of their interaction and relationship with that organization and, to a great extent, a manifestation of the attitude of management towards the employees. This belief is based on the premise that member's identity with the organization is a result of a set of carefully designed policies within the cultural pattern of the organization. An attempt has been made in this research to study the BPO sector to see whether the organizational culture and commitment level of employees differ across the different strata of employees in the BPO sector and finally to explore the relationship between organizational culture and commitment. The research was carried out in 15 BPO units in and around Chandigarh — Chandigarh, Panchkula, and Mohali which covered three strata of BPO units based on the number of employees and from all the three level of employees, i.e. top, middle, and lower level of employees. Results reveal that employees of smaller BPOs perceive their culture a shade better than medium or larger BPOs. And, as far as overall commitment is concerned, employees of smaller BPOs have significantly more commitment level than employees of medium or larger BPOs. As organizational culture is better in smaller BPOs and so is the commitment, these findings give us a cue that organizational culture has definite impact on commitment of employees. Further results reveal that commitment of employees is particularly sensitive to six dimensions of organizational culture viz. proaction, confrontation, trust, authenticity, experimentation, and collaboration. But, the results failed to support the relationship between autonomy and openness with commitment. Further, findings reveal that the focal point in the development of any strategy is directed towards impacting the commitment of employees towards their organizations

PurposeThe objective of the study is to examine the extent to which pharmaceutical companies in India rely on traditional planning approaches rather than the new learning approach to strategic planning. In addition to that, the study also seeks to examine the perceived ability of the pharmaceutical companies in India to integrate continuous improvement goals and product quality into the overall strategic planning and success in implementing total quality management (TQM) programs examined through three particular continuous improvement mindsets.Design/methodology/approachThe study collected data from select pharmaceutical companies in India through survey technique using a standardized questionnaire through online mode. A descriptive statistical analysis is performed to examine the extent of integration of strategic planning and continuous improvement in the select pharmaceutical companies in India.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that pharmaceutical companies in India still rely greatly on traditional planning methods for strategic planning. However, a shift is also observed toward adoption of best practice management and modern strategic management techniques. The study also demonstrates that continuous improvement goals and strategies are included into the corporate strategic planning.Research limitations/implicationsThe study employs only descriptive statistics, and no hypotheses are generated in the study because the objective is not to generalize the findings. The process of formulating quality goals and integrating them with strategy is typical to any company. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized. The findings of the study do not given any insights into the strategic quality management process due to online mode of data collection. Also, the focus on the study is on the internal management of quality in an organization and factors in the external environment or in the value chain outside the firm, influencing strategic management of quality are beyond the scope of present study.Practical implicationsConsidering the significance of quality of products, an understanding of the link between quality and strategic goals helps the managers in pharmaceutical industry to align the strategic planning goals with quality goals ensuring that the entire organization moves in same strategic direction.Originality/valueThe strong focus quality in pharmaceutical industry in India has given impetus to development of well-managed quality programs on the shop-floor to remain competitive and survive in the highly competitive global markets. However, no such study is conducted so far to understand the extent to which continuous improvement or TQM practices are integrated into strategic planning in the pharmaceutical companies in India.

The study examines the relationship between protean career orientation and perceived employability along with the engagement in proactive career behavior. The main objective of this paper is to understand how protean career orientation would form perceptions of student's employability with career self-management as a mediator. Data was collected with the help of a questionnaire from 182 business school students at Panjab University, Chandigarh. The result of correlation analysis indicates that a positive relationship exists between protean career orientation and perceived employability. PROCESS macro given by Hayes has been used to test the mediation. Analysis by bootstrapping method reveals that career self-management fully mediates the relationship between the two variables. Theoretically, this study extends the presence of protean career orientation beyond the work domain into the student life. It also adds on to the cross-cultural research by examining protean career orientation that is a US rooted concept in the Indian scenario. The practical implication of this study is that it improves perception of students towards their employability by indulging in career self-management initiatives. Further, business school management should aim at interventions to increase the self-directed and values-driven nature of students to make them more proactive with regards to their career management.

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