Abstract:

Stuff turnover rate stays high in the retail industry，due to low pay，low welfare，and little space for promotion. But， in Starbucks，although its staff doesn’t regard their jobs as permanent，they think highly of their experience there. Through a case study on a Starbucks store in Chengdu，we observed the work process of the store and took in-depth interviews with its employees，aiming to study the human resource management of Starbucks from the perspective of sociology. We found that most Starbucks employees are consumer-workers and their sense of identity derived from their dual identities: worker and consumer. As customers，their sense of identity come from the satisfaction of their consumer tastes；as workers，the emotional rewards they get from work support their enthusiasm for their work. However，Starbucks employees still won’t take their job there as long-term career as there exist some irrational judgment on such professional identities.

Key words: consumer-workers, sense of identity, consumer tastes, emotional rewards, Starbucks