Gary Rhoads, Bill Swinyard, Michael Geurts, and William Price

Retailing organizations must be able to attract, recruit, and retain competent managers to successfully compete in the 21st century. Due to unprecedented store expansion, more corporate and store manager retailing positions are available to college graduates than ever before. Despite such career opportunities, retailing organizations face a major obstacle in recruiting talented college graduates due to perceptions that retailing offers lower quality work experiences than other marketing careers. Past studies and recruiters have indicated that, compared to other marketing positions, college students perceive that jobs in retailing (1) have longer work-weeks; (2) offer lower compensation; (3) provide less work satisfaction, leading to lower managerial commitment and higher turnover; (4) create more stress and burnout; and (5) under-utilize the skills of salaried management. However, these perceptions have not been empirically documented.

In a national study of business graduates holding marketing positions, we investigated whether retailers' workplace experiences, such as job characteristics (feedback, participation, autonomy, variety, and control), role stress (overload and conflict) and psychological factors (job satisfaction, job burnout, organizational commitment, and turnover) were worse, equal to, or better than the workplace experiences of other marketers. Overall, study results show that corporate retailing executives are very different from retail store managers. Contrary to the perceptions and stereotypes of retailing, the workplace experiences of corporate retailing executives are much higher than those of retail store managers. Corporate retailing executives have a typical workweek that is the same length as that of other marketers, and earnings that are equivalent to the highest-paid marketers. Further, compared with other marketers, corporate retailing executives report similar levels of positive job characteristics, such as control, variety, feedback, and autonomy, and even higher levels of job participation. Finally, corporate retailing executives are satisfied with their pay, co-workers, family support, customers, work, recognition, and supervisor.

The opposite is true for retail store managers. The study confirms student perceptions that the workplace experiences and psychological well-being of retail store managers are less positive than those of other marketers, including those of corporate retailing executives. While the length of the typical workweek of retail store managers is not different from that of other marketers, they earn less than other marketers. Retail store managers report that they are less satisfied with recognition, work, pay, and customers than are the other marketers studied. Most important, retail store managers report less role overload, job variety, and job autonomy than the other marketers studied.

Retail store managers appear not to be suffering from "burn out" but from "rust out." They are working in positions that underutilize their skills, provide insufficient challenges, and have little variety and autonomy. Finally, the data show that retail store managers have lower levels of organizational commitment and report higher intentions to look for a new position than other marketing managers. These are perhaps the biggest problems facing retail store management in the 21st century.

The "rust-out" of retail store managers must be minimized. First, human resource departments in retailing organizations must identify and recruit the "right type of employee" for retail store manager positions. Second, top retail management must develop new work designs that are responsive to the needs of talented store managers. When retailing organizations recruit motivated, bright, and capable business graduates, they must find a way to utilize the skills of these graduates. Third, retailing organizations should avoid simply creating more pleasant work environments and focus instead on changing more significant factors, such as management styles, job designs, reward systems, and communication and coordination. Finally, retailing organizations should re-examine their current pay scales. Retail store managers must receive compensation packages that are competitive with other marketing-related positions. For most retail store managers, income is a measure of one's personal worth to the organization beyond being simple remuneration. Retailing organizations must recognize it as such.