Rita Subedi

Employee satisfaction has become indispensable in the immensely competitive business world for the sustainability of entities embracing sound human resource planning, human resource development, and an adequate performance appraisal system, as these factors foster employee satisfaction. Thus, this study aims to evaluate how human resource practices affect the level of satisfaction among the workforce in Nepalese commercial banks. The paper employed descriptive and explanatory research designs to test the hypotheses and to address the objectives. Structured survey questionnaires were disseminated among 700 employees working in commercial banks; only 389 (55.57 percent) questionnaires were successfully retrieved. This study employed descriptive statistics along with frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation to study the general characteristics of respondents’ background information. Next, correlation and linear regression were adopted to assess the association between predictors and outcome variables, along with a test of effects. The finding revealed a positive and significant association between human resource planning and employee satisfaction (p < 0.05). Similarly, human resource development had a positive effect on employee satisfaction (p < 0.05). Performance appraisal showed a positive correlation with employee satisfaction (p < 0.05). The implications suggest endorsing effective human resource practices as a strategic path for organizations to foster employee satisfaction.

Investor behavioral factors determine the investment decisions of individual investors in the stock market. The study investigated behavioral factors driving investment decisions in Nepal’s stock market, contributing to existing literature. The behavioral factors comprise heuristics, prospects, and herding as predictors and investment decisions as a response variable. Thus, the study adopted a descriptive and analytical research design to test the research hypotheses and resolve the research questions and issues. A survey was conducted among individual investors registered with Nepal’s trading management system (TMS). A total of 526 structured questionnaires were distributed to targeted respondents, and only 350 useful questionnaires (66.54 percent) were received. The survey data of cross-sectional type were encompassed with a random clustering sampling method for this study. Further, the study employed descriptive statistics to depict the characteristics of respondents’ profiles, correlation analysis to assess the association between predictors and response variables, and linear regression analysis to investigate the impact of predictors on response variables. Similarly, Cronbach’s alpha was tested to observe reliability in the study. The survey findings showed a positive and significant association between heuristics and investment decisions (β = 0.088, p < 0.05). The prospect is positively linked with the individual’s investment decision but found insignificant (β = 0.011, p > 0.05). Finally, herding found a positive and significant association with investment decisions (β = 0.235, p < 0.05). The findings of this study contribute to existing theory and can be a benchmark for decision-makers and policymakers, investors, and others.