The relationship among salesperson appearance, employee -organization identification, job involvement, and job performance in the context of an apparel retail store

The purpose of this study was to explore employee-organization identification in the apparel retail store setting. This study was guided by the following questions: (1) What is the nature of employee-organization identification in apparel retail stores? (2) In what ways, if any, is salesperson appearance related to employee-organization identification in an apparel retail store setting? (3) To what extent are employees' perceptions of store image, person-organization fit, and attractiveness of the organization directly and indirectly related to level of employee-organization identification among salespeople in an apparel retail store? (4) To what extent is level of employee-organization identification related to level of job involvement and job performance among salespeople in an apparel retail store? To address these questions, data was collected in two phases. In the first phase, interviews were conducted with nine apparel retail store employees. Interviewees' responses suggested that the apparel products they wore both during and outside of work seemed to serve as an indication of their level of identification with the apparel retail store for which they worked. In the second phase of the study, a questionnaire was completed by 251 apparel retail store salespeople. An analysis of the data using a structural equation modeling technique revealed that employees' beliefs concerning other individuals' perceptions of the store's image (i.e., construed external image) were directly and positively related to employee-organization identification. In the best-fitting model, neither person-organization fit nor attractiveness of the organization to the employee were shown to be significantly related to employee-organization identification. Employee-organization identification was directly and positively related to both job involvement and job performance, but job involvement and job performance were not significantly related to each other. Although the first phase of the study suggested a possible relationship between salesperson appearance and employee-organization identification, this finding was not replicated in the second phase of the study. However, post-hoc analyses revealed that salespeople who were required to wear the store's apparel while working displayed a higher level of person-organization fit, attraction to the store, job satisfaction, employee-organization identification, and job involvement than salespeople who were not required to wear the store's apparel while working.