Perceived importance and usage of dress codes among organizations that market professional...

A survey was conducted to investigate the nature and use of employee dress codes of organizations that market professional services. The study sample consisted of personnel administrators employed in selected service organizations that are members of the American Society of Personnel Administrators;

the total sample included 1000 administrators. The analysis of responses revealed that dress is important in marketing services and that compliance to a dress code is a criterion for employee performance evaluation. While most administrators agreed that dress is a significant factor in their companies' success, few organizations had formal written dress codes; dress codes are most often communicated orally. Traditions in the professions, the expectations of customers, Chief Executive Officers of the organizations, and past experiences were the factors that dominate the development of dress codes. On the question of dress code requirements for male vs. female employees, the study revealed that more service organizations specify dress for males than for females. For traditional business attire, comparing the dress codes of the different service organizations revealed several significant relationships.

In recent years much emphasis has been placed on the importance of dress and appearance for professional success. Often organizations make an effort to manage dress and appearance so as to communicate to the client/customer in the most effective manner. Such controls have traditionally been manifested in policies called "dress codes." The responsibility for the administration of dress codes has conventionally been treated as a personal function.

"Proper" business dress has long been a part of the norms of professional services practitioners such as bankers, accountants, stock brokers and management consultants. However, it is interesting to note that in the marketing literature there is little attention devoted to dress as it relates to the marketing of professional services. This is particularly interesting when one considers the growth of professional service industries as a part of the U.S. economy and the broadscale increases in attention focused on services marketing by practitioners and academicians.

The marketing literature does, however, address the issue of personal appearance as it relates to the personal sales interview. It is well documented from a behavioral standpoint that dress has a significant impact upon perception and image formation as a part of the interpersonal communication process (Horn, 1981; Kefgan and Touchie-Specht, 1986; Bixler, 1984; Mauser, 1973; Young and Mondy, 1978). Peak (1986) discovered that when personality traits are correlated with clothing styles, persons who wear conservative clothing are perceived as being more intelligent, mature, generous, sincere, trustful, understanding and dependable than those wearing more "daring" styles. According to Premeaux and Mondy (1987), dress establishes a level of respect and authority. This is often necessary to get the work done. In a study on occupation and grooming (Littrell and Verger, 1986) it was found that less positive characteristics are attributed to those who were groomed "poorly" than to those well groomed.

There is an essential difference between the professional salesperson and the professional service practitioner which underlies the justification of this study. Sales personnel are designated as the "front-line" customer contact persons for an organization which markets goods. Management, as well as salespersons themselves, are not only aware of the role of personal appearance and dress in interpersonal communication, but have employed the resources necessary to incorporate dress codes into promotion and marketing strategies. On the other hand, it is argued that professional service practitioners see themselves as "doers" rather than, sellers" (Bloom, 1984). Therefore, it is felt by some that these employees do not focus the necessary attention on those behavioral factors important in selling or marketing as would designated marketing personnel (Bloom, 1984). As Denny (1981) states:

One of the fundamental misconceptions many accountants have about marketing is that...someone else can bring in the new clients and then they can take over and do the work. Unfortunately they are wrong...It takes an accountant to sell accounting services.

The literature dealing with services marketing ]ends support to the premise that the dress behavior of employees could be a salient attribute of the buyer when involved in the purchase process of a professional service. Two commonly cited characteristics of services, intangibility and inseparability, give credence to this postulate, as discussed below (Zeithaml, 1985).

Because services are intangible in nature, perceptual and communication problems exist during the exchange process which make the true quality of the service difficult to evaluate and distinguish (Nickels, 1984). Pricing and valuation problems result, leading the buyer to feel uncertainty (Lovelock, 1981). With complex technical services such as legal, financial or consulting research, the problem is magnified because of the lack of knowledge of the buyer (Bloom, 1984). It can be argued that because the buyer cannot see (touch, smell or feel) the true quality of the service for evaluation that he might use surrogate criteria such as the behavior of the practitioner, the physical appearance of the facility or other tangible cues (Berry, 1980; George and Berry, 1981). Dress behavior, then, can become a tangible evaluative criteria for the buyer, regardless of the relationship dress has to the skills of the practitioner or quality of the service performed.

Another theoretical argument offered which distinguishes services from goods is that of inseparability. Often production and consumption of services cannot be separated temporally or spatially (Chase, 1978). Consequently, personal contact exists between the producer and consumer, allowing the buyer to have the perceptual exposure necessary to observe behavioral and physical characteristics of the seller.

The premise set forth as the rationale for this study is that through their behavior, each practitioner in a service organization which has customer/client contact plays a role in marketing that organization's service. Since dress is an important aspect of that behavior which plays a role in the communication process during this interaction, dress behavior can be a salient factor in the exchange process. If this premise is accepted, and dress is perceived to be important in marketing of professional services, then the question of management or control of employee dress arises. One would assume that organizations would make an effort to manage appearance so as to communicate to the client/customer in the most effective manner.

Methodology

The purposes of this study were to identify the nature and extent of usage of dress codes among selected service organizations and to determine the importance of dress in the marketing of professional services as reflected in the attitudes and opinions of personnel administrators and in the policies of their organizations. The study sample consisted of personnel administrators employed in selected service organizations that are members of the American Society of Personnel Administrators; the total sample included 1000 administrators.

The study involved a questionnaire designed to secure information about the perceived importance of dress codes among selected service organizations. Questions concerned the importance of employee appearance for service organizations, the factors used in developing dress codes, the requirements of dress codes, the effect of dress codes on employee performance evaluations, and the dress code requirements for male and female employees.

Questionnaires were returned by 304 personnel administrators, a 30.4 percent return. Data was analyzed using frequency distributions, and cid-squares were computed to determine statistical significance. Listed below are the number of respondents from various types of service industries which were used in this study: Type of Service Organization Number in Sample Management/Marketing Consultants 51 Health Care and Human Services 47 Hotel/Restaurant/Entertainment 40 Financial (accountants/stock brokers/banking) 39 Employment Agencies (including temporary) 39 Other (not specified by respondent) 35 Engineering and/or Computer Services 30 Legal 13

--Total 304

Results

The personnel administrators responding to the questionnaire clearly indicated that appearance of professional employees was a significant factor when a potential client or customer evaluated their company's services. As shown in Table 1, most (81%) of the respondents indicated that personal appearance was a "very important" factor in this evaluation process.

Of the 304 responding personnel administrators, 73% indicated that a dress code, either formally or informally communicated, had been established for their service organizations. Among those respondents whose organizations employed any type of dress code, 67% noted that individual employee compliance to the code was a criterion for employee performance evaluation. Eighty-five percent of the respondents indicated that compliance to a dress code was either absolutely necessary or very important when employers underwent performance evaluation.

As seen in Table 2, the employment of an established dress code varied little by type of services, ranging from 66 percent for management consultants to 83 percent for employment placement services. But the differences in the formalization and use of compliance varied more dramatically. While only 19 percent of management consulting firms had established written dress codes, 60 percent of the hotel/restaurant/entertainment groups used written codes. The data revealed that differences in the use of written codes existed between types of services, and that these were statistically significant at the .05 level. Only 42 percent of management consulting firms considered dress code compliance in evaluation of their employees, while 80 percent of employment placement/personnel services considered dress compliance as a factor in performance reviews. TABLE 2 OMITTED

The respondents were asked to rank the level of importance of eleven factors when developing a dress code. The scale ranged from "very important," "fairly important," "of little importance," to "no importance," with each given numerical weights of 1, 2, 3, and 4 in corresponding order. Mean scores and the percentages responding to each level of importance are reported in Table 3. Customer expectations, tradition/convention in the profession, and the opinion of the organization's C.E.O. were the three most important factors listed by the respondents in the development of dress codes.

Among those respondents whose organizations employed any type of dress code, chi-square analysis was performed to compare the classifications of the companies (local/independent or multi-location/regional/national) to the formality of the dress codes. Though not statistically significant, the study revealed that more of the local/independent service organizations used formal written dress codes, while more of the multi-located firms utilized dress codes which were informally communicated.

Over one-third (36%) of the respondents indicated that their dress codes had been established within the last 20 years. Many of the companies (43%) had made changes in their dress codes within the last 10 years. Though not statistically significant, it was found that the firms with revised dress codes were more relaxed in requiring a traditional business look.

Table 4 shows the differences in the degree of requirement for wearing a "traditional business suit" by type of business organization (as noted in the table, mean scores of weights assigned to responses were computed with a lower mean indicating that a business suit was required to a greater extent by these organizations). Of all types of services in the sample, financial services (accountants, stock brokers, banking) most required business suits, and engineering/computer least.

Differences among types of firms in the degree requirements of "suit with skirt" for women are also shown in Table 4. Those organizations classified as personnel services expected the wearing of suits with skirts more often than others, and again the engineering/computer services required the traditional suit with skirt to the least degree. TABLE 3 OMITTED

Conclusion

Most of the respondents indicated that dress is important in marketing services and that compliance to a dress code is a criterion for employee performance evaluation. While most administrators agreed that dress is a significant factor in their companies' success, few organizations had formal written dress codes; dress codes are more often communicated orally. TABLE 4 OMITTED

The results of this study lend support to the premise that dress and appearance of employees could be a salient attribute of the buyer when involved in the purchase process of a professional service. Although the usage of dress codes differed among service organizations, many administrators agreed that dress and appearance are particularly important in making an initial impression and in progressing in a business career. More needs to be known about the actual impact of dress and appearance on the communication process with clients and customers in professional service organizations.

Table 1.
  The Importance of Appearance of a Professional Employee in the Evaluation
of a Product or Service by a Potential Client or Customer.
                          N    %
  Very Important          246  81%
  Fairly Important        55   18%
  Of Little Importance    3    1%
  Of No Importance        0    0%

References

Berry, L.L (1980). Services marketing is different. Business, 3, 24-29.

Bixler, S. (1994). The Professional Image. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Bloom, P.N. (1984). Growth strategies of service firms. Harvard Business Review, 62, 5, 104.

Chase, R.B. (1978). Where does the customer fit in the service organization. Harvard Business Review, 56, 4, 158-165.

Denny, R.W. (1981). How to develop a marketing plan for your firm. Practical Accountant, 6, 28.

George, W.R., & Berry, L.L. (1981). Guidelines for the advertising of services. Business Horizons, 4, 19.

Horn, M. (1981). The Second Skin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kefgen, M., & Touchie--Specht, D. (1986). Individuality in Clothing Selection and Personal Appearance. New York: Macmillan.

Littrell, M.A., & Verger, E.A. (1986). Perceiver's occupation and client's grooming: Influence on person perception. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 4, 2, 40-44.

Lovelock, C.H. (1981). Marketing of Services. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 24-29.

Mauser, F.F. (1973). Salesmanship: A Contemporary Approach. New York: Harcourt Brace Jonanovick, Inc.

Nickels, W.G. (1984). Marketing Communications and Promotion. New York: Grid, Inc.

Peak, S.L. (1986). Effect of garment styles on the perceptions of personal traits. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 5, 1, 26-29. Premeaux, S.R., and Mondy, R.W. (1987). People problems: Dress distractions. Management Solutions, 32, 1, 37.

Young, J.R., & Mondy, R.W. (1978). Personal Selling: Function, Theory, and Practice. Hindsdale, Illinois: The Dryden Press.

Zeithaml, V.A., Perasurman, A., & Berry, L.L. (1985). Problems and strategies in services marketing. Journal of Marketing, 49, 2, 24-26.

Cynthia R. Eastering is a professor of fashion merchandising at The University of Southern Mississippi. She holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University. She and coauthor Marian Jernigan have recently published a textbook, Fashion Merchandising and Marketing, with Macmillan Publishing Company. Dr. Easterling is also a coauthor with Flotman and Jernigan for the book, Retail Merchandising Mathematics, published by Prentice Hall. Prior to pursuing an academic career, she was employed by J.C. Penney and Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche.

Judith K Leslie holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Car olina at Greensboro. She is an assistant professor in fashion merchandising at The University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to earning her academic degree, Dr. Leslie was employed in public personnel administration. Her areas of research include management, merchandising and retailing.

Michael A. Jones is an assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. He has published widely in the field of marketing, management, and public administration.