The Sears X-Y Study

Abstract

In the aftermath of a sharp but temporary downturn of sales in 1949, the national personnel department of Sears, Roebuck undertook a study of how representative store mangers were coping with the problems of falling sales and profits and what could be learned from their experience. One of the specific problems the study addressed was that of payroll expense. Of special concern was the tendency observed in some stores to increase the number of persons in staff and supervisory positions.

In order to secure factual information on this question, two groups of midsize stores were selected for study. They were carefully chosen for comparability in all respects but one. They were of similar size, carried the same lines of merchandise, and were located in communities of comparable size and demography. In number of employees they ranged from a low of 96 to a high of 113. They differed in only one important respect: structure of organization.

Because in Sears terminology all stores in both groups were "B" stores, for purposes of the study one group was labeled "X" and the other "Y." Stores in the X group had a simple type of organization structure with a minimum number of staff and supervisory employees. There was a store manager at the top, a single assistant manager, and approximately thirty (actual range: twenty-seven to thirty-two) heads of selling departments ("division managers" in Sears parlance). There were, in addition, the usual non-selling or "service" activities such as shipping and receiving, customer service, maintenance, and unit control (the auditing and credit functions reported up separate lines of authority independent of the store managers).