Met expectations during role transitions of retail executive trainees

Examines met expectations of retail trainees within a job context framework that consists of five job characteristics. The job characteristics of autonomy, skill variety, task significance, task identity, and feedback from others have been linked to job outcomes such as job satisfaction. Results indicated that for each job characteristic, expectations were higher initially than actually experienced one year later. Three of the five characteristics (feedback, autonomy, and skill variety) were important in predicting job satisfaction. Demographic variables of gender and work experience yielded significant differences of met expectations for two job characteristics.