Full-time vs. part-time salespeopleA comparison on job satisfaction, performance,

and turnover in direct selling

by Thomas R. Wotruba

直銷通路管理報告指導教授﹕陳得發教授學生 : 王昭雄 學號﹕ 8941812中華民國九十一年四月二十四日

Abstract

A comparison of Part-time vs. full-time salespeople from four U.S. direct selling companies revealed that part-timers had greater job satisfaction and less propensity to quit.

Part-timers were also better performers as measured by earnings per hour worked.

High levels of job satisfaction for part-timers is consistent with the theory that they are less involved in organizational functioning so have less opportunity to accumulate dissatisfying experiences.

1.Introduction

Countries

Total Percentages

The percentages

of women

U.S. 17% 68%

Sweden &Netherlands 25% 86%

Norway & Denmark 23%

United Kingdom 21%

Australia 20%

Belgium 93%

Part-time employment involves a significant part of the total labor force in the U.S. and many other countries

Background Literature on benefit and problems of part-time employment

Granrose & Appelbaum(1986)

Flexibility: part-timers offer flexibility I scheduling to match demand for their services.Availability of knowledgeable and experienced works: Many such workers are unavailable for full-time work because of age and family or personal obligations.Commitment: Part-timers are less committed to their work, especially if a better-paying offer is presented.

Wise, Bernstein & Cuneo (1985)

Cost saving:

Part-timers can sometimes be substituted for overtime by full-time employees at correspondingly lower pay.

Barrrett (1983), Shanks (1984)

Productivity:A half-day worker can produce three-quarters of the amount of work of a full-day work; part-timers do not take long breaks and have less absenteeism.

Nollen(9182)

Supervision and training problems: supervision is difficulty because part-timers are not always present and thus require extra communication efforts.

The research issue

Key variable in understanding any employee group are job satisfaction, performance, and turnover. Management wants to build job satisfaction within employees so that performance is maximized and turnover is minimized.

The study reported here is not aimed at analyzing relationships between satisfaction, performance, and turnover. It focuses on differences between part-time and full-time salespeople in order to research apply similarly to bath group.

Summary previous research comparing part-timers and full-timers on job satisfaction, performance, and turnover

Topics Study Major findings

Job

satisfaction

Logain,

O’Reilly, And Roberts(1973)

No difference in job satisfaction between part-time and full-time hospital employees.

Hall and Gordon (1973)

Part-time female college graduates in a variety of job had less job satisfaction than their full-time counterparts.

Miller and Terborg (1979)

Part-time clerical employees had lower job satisfaction than full-timers regarding benefit and pay.

Summary previous research comparing part-timers and full-timers on job satisfaction, performance, and turnover

Topics Study Major findings

Performance

Thurik and van der Wjist (1984

In Dutch and French retail stores with counter service (as opposed to self-service), labor productivity was positively related to share of part-time labor.

Turnover

Still (1983) Turnover, operationalized as absenteeism, was greater among full-time.

Granrose and Appelbaum (9186)

Low turnover occurred in a bindery operated exclusively with part-time workers though no data reported.

Jackofsky, Salter and Peters (1986)

Discussed why voluntary turnover is higher among part-time than among full-time works but gave no data

2. Hypotheses

Job satisfaction Hypotheses 1: Job satisfaction will be greater for part-time salespeople than for full-time salespeople.

Hypotheses 2: Job satisfaction will be greater for those part-time

salespeople who do not have other outside employment, and will be lower as the extent of other outside employment increases.

Performance Hypotheses 3. Performance will be better for part-time salespeople than for full-time salespeople.

Hypotheses 4. Performance will be better for those part- time salespeople, and will be lower as the

extent of other outside employment increases.

2.Hypotheses

Turnover

Hypotheses 5: Turnover will be lower for part-time salespeople than for full-time salespeople. Hypotheses 6: Turnover will be lower for those part- time salespeople who do not have

other outside employment, and will increase as the extent of other outside employment increases.

3 .The study

Sample: 1. Four U.S. direct selling companies 2. A Mail questionnaire was sent to 1600 respondents throughout the U. S. 3. 491 responded, 32% of which indicated they had already quit their sales position with one of the cooperating companies. Using 35 or more hours per week as the measure of full-time employment, 29% were employed full-time and 71% part-time. The vast majority- 85%- were female.

Variables 1. Job satisfaction was measured using ten items from the job satisfaction subscales. The ten items involved seven-point rating scales ranging. 2. The coefficient alpha measure of reliability was 0.95. 3. Performance was measured by calculating earning per hour based on two separate questionnaire answers. 4. Turnover was measured using a single scale incorporating both quitting and intentions to quit. The scale had six positions.

Table 3 Descriptive results for study variables a

Respondent groups Means（and standard deviations）on：

Job satisfaction Performance Turnover

rect selling job only

Part-time salespeople 53.88（11.82） 19.87（54.34） 2.95（1.76）

Full-times salespeople 39.60（16.64） 8.14（18.81） 4.73（1.90）

nployment

combinations

Part-time selling and No other job（n = 117）

55.03（11.78）

14.13（21.19）

2.81（1.71）

Part-time selling and Part-time other（n = 67）

53.71（12.24）

23.23（72.08）

3.06（1.78）

Part-time selling and Full-time other（n = 115）

52.86（12.17）

23.56（64.27）

3.03（1.80）

Full-time selling and no other job（n = 72）

43.99（16.44）

6.00（6.89）

4.36（2.06）

Full-time selling and Part-time other（n = 27）

36.92（12.71）

8.93（18.32）

5.07（1.54）

Full-time selling and Full-time other（n = 27）

30.83（16.73）

13.32（35.68）

5.37（1.57）

Job satisfaction can range from 10－70; larger values indicate greater satisfaction. Performance is measured in dollar earnings per hour. Turnover can range from 1 to 6; larger values indicate greater propensity to quit

Table 4Impact of direct selling status,outside employment status,and sex on the study variables

Analysis of variance F d.f. Significance

Job satisfactionMain effects 28.43 4 0.00001

Full- vs. Part-time in selling 89.12 4 0.0001

Other employment 5.4 2 0.005

Sex 0.01 1 0.927

Interactions(2-way) 3.20 5 0.008

Selling and other employment

3.46 2 0.032

Selling and sex 2.44 1 6.119

Other employment and sex 0.79 2 0.453

Interactions (3-way) 1.13 2 0.323

Explained 12.00 11 0.0001

Table 4Impact of direct selling status,outside employment status,and sex on the study variables

Analysis of variance F d.f. Significance

Performance

Main effects 1.84 4 0.121

Full- vs. Part-time in selling 2.65 1 0.104 Other employment 1.34 2 0.264 Sex 0.001 1 0.973

Interactions(2-way) 0.08 5 0.996 Selling and other employment 0.08 2 0.923 Selling and sex 0.06 1 0.802 Other employment and sex 0.03 2 0.974Interactions (3-way) 1.99 2 0.138Explained 1.07 11 0.389

Table 4Impact of direct selling status,outside employment status,and sex on the study variables

Analysis of variance F d.f. Significance

TurnoverMain effects 23.23 4 0.0001

Full- vs. Part-time in selling 71.89 1 0.0001

Other employment 2.85 2 0.059

Sex 0.05 1 0.818

Interactions(2-way) 1.30 5 0.263

Selling and other employment

1.03 2 0.359

Selling and sex 3.26 1 0.072

Other employment and sex 0.36 2 0.697

Interactions (3-way) 1.12 2 0.327

Explained 9.24 11 0.0001

Results are shown only when the probability of t

Table 5 Comparisons among employment combinations Groups compared t-test probabilities Selling Selling for comparisons on: +other +other Job Turnover satisfaction 1. part-time+ 2. part-time+ － － none part-time

2. part-time+ 3. part-time+ － － part-time full-time

1. part-time+ 3. part-time+ － － none full-time

4.full-time+ 5. full-time+ 0.028 － none part-time

5.full-time+ 6. full-time+ － － part-time full-time

4.full-time+ 6. full-time+ 0.001 0.012 none full-time

1 and 4: 2 and 5: 0.021 0.042 part-time or part-time or full-time+ full-time+ none part-time

2 and 5: 3 and 6: － － part-time or part-time or full-time+ full-time+ part-time full-time

1 and 4: 3 and 6: 0.0001 0.007 part-time or part-time or full-time+ full-time+ none full-time

Results are shown only when the probability of t 0.05 using separate variance estimates. There sere no significant t scores for comparisons involving performance.

5. Discussion Job satisfaction 1 . high levels of job satisfaction for part-timers is

consistent with the theory that they are less involved in organizational functioning so have less opportunity to accumulate dissatisfying experiences . 2. Part-timers may have different motivations for

working, placing lower priority on pay and advancement and higher priority on flexibility and escape from routine or boredom. 3. Since job satisfaction was greater in the combination in

which selling was the part-time job and lower in the combination in which selling was full-time, this suggest that greater job satisfaction is associated with the

part- time component.

5. Discussion Performance 1.While the difference in mean performance between full-time and part-time salespeople appeared substantial and in the proposed direction, it was significant at only the 0.104 level because of the large variances around the means. Speculation into the reasons for these large variances in performance across the six employment combination groups.

2.If these salespeople have higher priority for pay, they might restructure their efforts to focus more on selling and less on social activities associated with these jobs.

5. Discussion Turnover 1.The results of this study regarding turnover closely parallel the results for job satisfaction. Part-timers who have greater job satisfaction also demonstrate lower propensity to quit.

2.Full-timers in selling show a growing propensity to quit as they take on other employment. This is likely if their priority for pay is also increasing, thus motivating them to leave a job sooner if a better- paying alternative appears.

5. Discussion Limitation 1.This study suffers from the usual limitations of cross- sectional research, making causal inferences highly speculative.

2. Another limitation involves the type of salespeople involved in this study.

3.The use of ANOVA with unequal cell sizes might have

distorted the analysis.

4. A comparison of the results of this study with previous studies strongly suggests that outside direct salespeople do not behave in a manner similar to inside retail salespeople.

5. Implications for management and future research Part-timers exhibit greater job satisfaction, low turnover,

and greater productivity in term of earnings per hour. To the extent possible, managers in direct selling firm

should seek out part-times who have other employment, since there are no significant differences on job satisfaction ,turnover, or performance among part-timers with and without other employment.

This study offers some hope that part-time sales positions in non-retail setting can yield satisfying work to the individual and productive results to the organization.

Employees near retirement who have selling experience and the technical knowledge to deal with the company’s products or services might find a part0time schedule a desirable option.

5. Implications for management and future research

More studies are needed on other salesperson populations.

Other factors which might affect the dependent variables in this study must also be considered. One is the importance of earning as a motivator for taking multiple jobs. Another may be the presence of a working spouse in the household.

Further insights can undoubtedly be gained by incorporating other variables suggested in performance and turnover models, such as organizational commitment and pre-employment expectations.

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