TY - JOUR

T1 - Facilitating age diversity in organizations – Part I

T2 - Challenging popular misbeliefs

AU - Hertel, Guido

AU - van der Heijden, Beatrice

AU - de Lange, Annet H.

AU - Deller, Jürgen

PY - 2013/11/29

Y1 - 2013/11/29

N2 - Purpose – In recent years, significant demographic changes in most industrial countries have tremendously affected the age distribution of workers in organizations. In general, the workforce has become more age-diverse, providing significant and new challenges for human resource managementand leadership processes. The current paper aims to address age-related stereotypes as a major factor that might impede potential benefits of age diversity in organizations.Design/methodology/approach – After a brief review of potential detrimental effects of age-related stereotyping at work, the authors discuss the validity of typical age stereotypes based on new findings from large-scale empirical research with more than 160,000 workers overall.Findings – Although the research summarized in this review is based on large samples including several thousand workers, the cross-sectional nature of the studies does not control for cohort or generational effects, nor for (self-)selection biases. However, the summarized results still provide important guidelines given that challenges due to age diversity in modern organizations today have tobe dealt with regardless of the concrete origins of the age-related differences.Originality/value – This is one of the first reviews challenging popular misbeliefs about older workers based on large-scale empirical research.

AB - Purpose – In recent years, significant demographic changes in most industrial countries have tremendously affected the age distribution of workers in organizations. In general, the workforce has become more age-diverse, providing significant and new challenges for human resource managementand leadership processes. The current paper aims to address age-related stereotypes as a major factor that might impede potential benefits of age diversity in organizations.Design/methodology/approach – After a brief review of potential detrimental effects of age-related stereotyping at work, the authors discuss the validity of typical age stereotypes based on new findings from large-scale empirical research with more than 160,000 workers overall.Findings – Although the research summarized in this review is based on large samples including several thousand workers, the cross-sectional nature of the studies does not control for cohort or generational effects, nor for (self-)selection biases. However, the summarized results still provide important guidelines given that challenges due to age diversity in modern organizations today have tobe dealt with regardless of the concrete origins of the age-related differences.Originality/value – This is one of the first reviews challenging popular misbeliefs about older workers based on large-scale empirical research.

KW - Business psychology

KW - Age

KW - Age diversity

KW - Ageing workforce

KW - Demographic change

KW - Stereotypes

KW - Management studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84889055595&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1108/JMP-07-2013-0233

DO - 10.1108/JMP-07-2013-0233

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 28

SP - 729

EP - 740

JO - Journal of Managerial Psychology

JF - Journal of Managerial Psychology

SN - 0268-3946

IS - 7-8

ER -