Owners of small businesses who fail to implement adequate employee motivation and retention strategies may experience lost profit and high employee turnover. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the managerial strategies that owners of small businesses owners used to motivate and retain sales associates to increase profits. The population for the study included owners of 4 businesses in Texas who successfully implemented employee motivation and retention strategies. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with business owners and from artifacts such as company websites and social media pages. Transformational leadership theory guided the study. Data were analyzed using Yin’s 5 steps of data analysis including compiling data, disassembling data, reassembling data, interpreting data, and drawing conclusions. Three themes emerged from the data analysis: provide financial incentives, increase job satisfaction, and enhance job training. The findings of this study might contribute to positive social change by providing owners of small businesses with strategies to retain employees, which may build customer loyalty and increase business performance and longevity. Business leaders may benefit from these findings by strengthening relationships with employees and improving the overall performance of the organization. The results of this study could also contribute to positive social change by helping other small business owners implementing motivation and retention strategies, which might enhance business sustainability. Business sustainability supports both local and state economies and fosters an optimum distribution of resources in the community.

The study employed 206 entry-level, retail sales associates working for a large telecommunications company across 70 store sites. The purpose of the study was to discriminate successful performers from those with little sales potential via a valid, fair, and practical selection procedure. The experimental test set consisted of the General Ability Battery, Sales Attitude Checklist, Wonderlic Personnel Test, SRA Verbal Form, School and College Ability Test Verbal, SPA Arithmetic Index, and SRA Reading Index. Supervisory ratings and percent revenue data were used as measures of sales performance. Based on the multiple regression results, the SPA Reading Index and SRA Verbal Form were chosen to compose the final selection system for the retail sales position.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the experiences of retail sales associates regarding work demands, the conditions provided to them to meet these demands, and the strategies they use to manage their work situation. The essay aims to highlight the challenges faced by retail sales associates, especially when high work demands and quantitative targets overshadow their human needs and well-being. The role of a retail sales associate involves a constant balancing act between satisfying customers' individual needs and preferences while also meeting employer demands and sales targets, which can pose a significant challenge for many sales associates. The essay is built on a qualitative approach together with the included theoretical framework which is Karasek and Theorell's demand-control-support model, as well as Arlie Hochschild's concepts of emotional labor, feeling rules, and surface and deep acting. From the collected empirical material, alongside the theoretical framework, three key themes emerged that formed the results of the study, which are: The new Taylorism – a combination between emotional labor and sale pressure, Levels of conditions – from customer to management, Taking control and withstand alienation, When the organization's support is lacking, colleagues play a decisive role. The results therefore suggest that the retail sales associates' work environment is characterized by high sales demands, subtle expectations for emotional labor, and insufficient resources. To cope with these demands, sales associates seek support from their colleagues and attempt to create a work culture that resists individualism and alienation, particularly when the support provided by employers is deemed inadequate. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka butikssäljares upplevelser av arbetskrav, de förutsättningar som de tillhandahålls för att möta dessa krav, och de strategier som butikssäljarna själva använder för att hantera sin arbetssituation. Uppsatsen strävar efter att belysa de utmaningar som butikssäljare möter, särskilt när höga arbetskrav och kvantitativa mål dominerar över deras mänskliga behov och välbefinnande. Att arbeta som butikssäljare innebär bevisligen en ständig balansakt mellan att tillgodose kundernas individuella behov och önskemål samtidigt som arbetsgivarens krav och försäljningsmål ska upprätthållas, vilketför många butikssäljare kan innebära en utmaning. Uppsatsen genomfördes genom kvalitativ metod och det teoretiska ramverk som använts är Karasek och Theorells krav-kontroll-stödmodell samt Arlie Hochschilds begrepp emotionellt lönearbete, känsloregler samt yt- och djupagerande. Genom det empiriskt insamlade materialet tillsammans med det teoretiska ramverket framträdde tre centrala teman som utgjorde resultatet för undersökningen, vilka är följande: Den nya Taylorismen – kombination mellan emotionellt arbete och säljpress, Nivåer av förutsättningar – från kund till ledning, Att ta kontroll och motstå alienation, När organisationens stöd brister spelar kollegorna en avgörande roll. Resultatet visar således sammanfattningsvis en framträdande bild av hurbutikssäljares arbetsmiljö präglas av höga försäljningskrav, subtila förväntningar på emotionella investeringar i arbetet och bristande förutsättningar. För att hantera arbetskraven söker butikssäljarna stöd från kollegor och försöker själva skapa en arbetskultur som motstårindividualism och alienation, när de förutsättningar som arbetsgivarna tillhandahåller anses otillräckliga.

The amount of people in Sweden who were made redundant during the corona pandemic exceeds both the Swedish financial crisis in 1990 and the global financial crisis in 2008.  The negative economic development led to more pressure on people to work harder and perform better in order for their firm to survive. The purpose of this thesis was to explore if and how the value creation process between service providers and their customers, from a business perspective, had been influenced by the corona pandemic.  A conceptual model based on service-logic was created to shed light on potential disruptions affecting the value creation. Empirical data was collected through qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with sales-associates employed by a mobile-operator firm in Sweden. Findings resulted in five main insights of disruptions that impact the provider and its value-creation with its customers. These include managerial decisions, unreasonable goal-setting, social distancing, new provider-customer frictions and foot-traffic, which all stemmed from decisions taken by the firm and government restrictions.   This dissertation has contributed to additional insights in how the service-logic and its various concepts regarding value creation, from a firm’s perspective, is affected during a major crisis. The difficulties experienced by sales-associates during the corona pandemic is two-fold. The sales-associates have to adhere to decisions made by the firm which often leads to more pressure to perform, and the restrictions implemented by governments leads to poor conditions for creating customer-relationships in turn. These conditions impact the firm’s ability to facilitate and co-create value with its customers.

In today’s constantly changing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) retail market environment, it is imperative that retailers should focus on creating a pleasant shopping experience to differentiate their stores in order to achieve a competitive advantage. One of the strategies to achieve competitive advantage can be human variables. This study focused on the influence of human variables on consumers’ shopping experience in FMCG retail stores in Ekurhuleni. Therefore, this study expands the existing knowledge of human variables in the FMCG retail environment. Human variables in the context of this study comprise other customers and sales associates. Each of these human variables is made up of sub-variables. The sub-variables of other customers include crowding and social relations. On the other hand, the sub-variables of sales associates are sales associates’ availability, physical attributes of sales associates and behavioural attributes of sales associates. This empirical study was conducted with 400 FMCG retail stores consumers of the ages between 18 and 60 who reside in Ekurhuleni. The study followed a descriptive research design and quantitative approach in order to address the research objectives. A convenience sampling method and a mall-intercept survey by means of self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted in which the Likert scale statements in question 2 - 6 (see Appendix B) measuring different sub-variables of other customers and sales associates were subjected to a Principal Axis Factoring with Oblimin rotation. The results of the final EFA involved 13 Likert scale items. The test were conducted to validate the measures of human variables. The Principal Axis Factoring revealed five factors. These factors were social relations, behavioural attributes, crowding, physical attributes and sales associates’ availability. Therefore, reliability tests were conducted on the final items measuring the human variables. The results of this research study indicate that social relations, sales associates’ availability, physical attributes of sales associates and behavioural attributes of sales associates influence consumers’ shopping experience in FMCG retail stores in Ekurhuleni. However, the consumers felt neutral with regard to crowding. The test results of a chi-square for equal proportion revealed that all the five hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5) were supported as the proportions of consumers with regard to the influence of these sub-variables on their shopping experience were statistically different. Furthermore, ANOVA and F-test results for testing whether there were differences between demographics indicated that H1a, H2b and H5c were supported because there were statistically significant differences between genders with regard to the influence of crowding, between age groups regarding social relations, as well as between racial groups with regard to the influence of behavioural attributes of sales associates on consumers’ shopping experience. / Business Management / M. Com (Business Management)