Among the antecedents of motivation, psychological climate has been regarded as one of the most significant contributors to an individual's motivation. This. research uses the Vroom Expectancy Theory (VIE) of Work Motivation (1964) to examine the relationship between psychological climate and work motivation of management employees within the retail industry. Motivation was examined as an aggregate subject rather than looking at valence, instrumentality or expectancy. Resulting psychological climate subscales included a job characteristic, a supervisor characteristic and an organizational characteristic. Results confirm that an employee's psychological climate beliefs have a significant effect on work motivation within the retail industry. By understanding the areas within psychological climate that effect work motivation, educators will be able to structure course content to assist students in developing a professional perspective. Human resources management can use this information to analyze the store's work environment, reevaluate existing training programmes. examine the reward structure and refine recruitment strategies to determine how each one can encourage employee motivation.

Promotional supports provided by manufacturers are important to many retailers. With the intense competition for customers and heightened concern for profit margins, retailers’ cooperation is critical in the promotional process so that promotional services mutually benefit both manufacturers and retailers. The purpose of this study was to define promotional support categories offered to apparel retailers from manufacturers, to identify the retailer's perceptions of the offering frequency and importance of the promotional support, and to investigate the relationship between offering frequency and perceptions of importance. A descriptive research design was developed to survey 100 large retail organizations in the USA. Results indicated that monetary support was regarded as the promotional support offered the most and perceived by retailers to be the most important. Findings reveal an overall consistency between apparel retail buyers’ importance perception and manufacturers’ offering frequency of promotional support. A positive and significant correlation was found between items the buyers perceived as important and the frequency of offerings of these items. Indications were that manufacturers recognize their customers’ needs by matching the frequency of support offerings with which they offer the promotional support with the importance perception of buyers toward the promotional support. Future studies should identify and examine additional promotional support items. Also, examining the interrelationships among organizational variables, as well as combined effects on apparel retail buyers’ buying decision‐making using a global model, needs to be investigated.

Casual business apparel addresses many issues in the workplace. This phenomenon is having a strong impact on the corporate world, including employee production and motivation. Employees in many organisations are being permitted to wear apparel items that are considered non‐traditional for the business setting. Research conducted about casual dress has focused on what is appropriate, and perceptions of changes in standard measures of productivity. Limited research exists regarding the relationship of casual apparel in the workplace and the more complex measures of employee motivation, specifically perceptions of organisational climate. The purpose of this research was to identify the employee perceptions of organisational climate which occur with the implementation of a casual apparel policy and to examine the relationship between demographic variables and the employee perceptions of organisational climate. The sample was 125 corporate management personnel of a US manufacturer. Results of the analysis of the self‐administered questionnaire indicated that employees with lower incomes believe that wearing casual apparel in the workplace will improve their relationships, especially with their supervisor, as well as their sense of belonging to the organisation. In addition, women felt less comfortable with wearing casual apparel in the workplace than did men. Results of this study indicate that casual apparel in the workplace does relate to organisational factors of psychological climate. Wearing casual apparel in the workplace is perceived to help eliminate boss/employee lines. This finding suggests that employees have the potential to be better team players. As a result, productivity, creative thinking and contributions by employees may also increase. Future research should further examine the effects of casual dress on other motivational factors and measures of productivity as well as gender differences. A pre‐/post‐casual dress implementation study needs to be done in order to measure actual changes in motivation and productivity.

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