Socialization effects of retail work experience on shopping orientations

The shopping orientations of consumers have been the subject of a significant amount of study in the marketing and retailing literature (c.f., Darden and Reynolds 1971; Darden and Ashton 1975; Korgaonkar 1981; Lumpkin and Greenberg 1982). While the literature will be more completely reviewed below, it can be generally concluded that consumers' orientations toward shopping have been found consistently to be among the most important predictors of both individual store and store-type choice behavior. Very little is known, however, about the factors which explain individual differences in shopping orientations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the socializing influence of one unique determinant of shopping orientations: Retail Work Experience. Consumer researchers generally agree that experience plays an important role in the determination of future behavior. The experience which has been of primary interest to marketers is that which individuals acquire while acting as consumers. However, experience acquired in other contexts can also impact consumer behavior. An individual's experiences emerge from the multitude of roles that he or she performs, and these experiences are thought to contribute to specific as well as general knowledge. It appears reasonable, for example, that the automotive engineer approaches the purchase of an automobile with a different orientation than the "typical" car buyer. Here, both the individual's consumer and work experiences are important in determining the person's consumption behavior; the individual's work experiences