The purpose of this study was to investigate the saleability judgements of retail store buyers of women's and men's wear. A sample of 81 women's and men's wear buyers, representing two specialty stores and one mass merchandiser, was sent questionnaires. Principal Components Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation was used to reduce the number of product, vendor and information source variables to eight factors. Three significant differences existed between the women's wear and men's wear buyers, verifying that not all retail buyers are alike. Results will benefit educators in preparing students to become more effective buyers, retail management can incorporate this same information into a buyer training program and apparel manufacturers can use the study in planning product strategies to retailers.

The problem of this study was to determine if employee child care difficulties were related to absenteeism. A case study was conducted among sixty-three employees at a north Dallas bank using a survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze child care difficulties. A majority of employees experienced difficulty when co-workers had child care problems. A majority of the parent employees had difficulty finding sick or emergency/temporary child care, affording child care, and working overtime due to child care. The majority of parents had child care related absences and work interruptions and thirty-nine percent of them considered quitting their jobs due to child care problems. This study implied the need for employer-supported child care options for the bank employees.

The purpose of this research was to determine if perception of fit in jeans will vary by target wearer, sex, educational background, political-social attitudes, and brand name. One hundred and sixteen usable questionnaires were completed by students enrolled in the 1987 spring semester at a university in North Texas. The questionnaire gathered data about perception of fit in jeans, social-political attitudes, clothing interest, and jeans consumption. No differences were found between perception of fit by sex or target wearer. Factors found to affect perception of fit were educational background, political-social attitudes, brand name, and clothing interest. Subjects indicated fit was the most important factor considered when purchasing jeans.

One problem facing the hospitality industry today is turnover. Management turnover rates of 50 and 75 percent continue to plaque all segments of the industry. Personality type theory holds that people are happier in environments that are compatible with their personalities. This study examines 229 undergraduate students enrolled in hospitality education at the University of North Texas. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator was administered to these students to determine their predominant personality types, and to compare these types to those desired by hospitality industry professionals for success within the industry. Variables such as gender, work experience, and classification were also examined in comparison to student personality types.

Employee selection research identifies and makes use of associations between individual differences, such as those measured by psychological testing, and individual differences in job performance. Artificial neural networks are computer simulations of biological nerve systems that can be used to model unspecified relationships between sets of numbers. Thirty-five neural networks were trained to estimate normalized annual revenue produced by telephone sales agents based on personality and biographic predictors using concurrent validation data (N=1085). Accuracy of the neural estimates was compared to OLS regression and a proprietary nonlinear model used by the participating company to select agents.