Search results

The age diversity climate construct is gaining greater attention in the organizational literature due to the demographic changes in the workplace. While the few existing studies on age diversity climate (ADC) are rather encouraging, this construct is still at an early stage of conceptual and operational development. This chapter helps to advance this field of research by analyzing the conceptual issues stemming from the theoretical definition and empirical measurement of the ADC construct. We first review and compare ADC with other age-focused climate concepts, highlighting overlapping and diverging factors regarding their conceptual framework and operationalization. Subsequently, we consider several open issues related to the operationalization of ADC, including the level of analysis, the choice of referent, and the dimensions of analysis. We conclude the chapter by outlining possibilities for future research on ADC.

As the global workforce ages, organizations face unprecedented challenges, especially managing effective communication between generations. The phenomenon of middle ageism (i.e. discriminating against middle-aged employees based on their age) has become more prevalent. The authors examined how contextual settings and communication affect attitudes toward middle-aged employees and hiring intentions.

Data were collected from 537 employees from various organizations, via questionnaires. The moderated mediation model was analyzed using Hayes' PROCESS models.

Results showed that attitudes toward middle-aged employees mediated the relationship between social climate of shared codes and language and hiring intentions. Social climate was positively related to attitudes toward their adaptability, but negatively to attitudes toward their ability. Also, decision-makers' own perceived employability moderated the relationship between attitudes toward employees' adaptability and hiring intentions, and the indirect relationship between social climate and hiring intentions.

Since age diversity is expected to become one of the most dominant diversity classifications in the very near future, coping with middle ageism constitutes a growing challenge for managers and HR staff. The findings indicate that in order to enhance sustainable employment and prevent discrimination, organizations need not only maintain a supportive climate for older employees, as an affirmative action, but also ensure better communication in terms of sharing codes and language that enhance positive attitudes toward middle-aged colleagues.

In an era where diversity and inclusion dominate human resource management decision making, this study contributes to the literature on the underexplored domain of age diversity.

The current article investigates the impact of generational diversity on knowledge sharing and group performance. It, further, explores the moderating effects of intergenerational climate, boundary-spanning leadership, and respect in facilitating greater knowledge sharing and enhanced group performance.

The authors applied partial least square structural equation modeling to test the model, using a sample of 635 employees working in the banking industry.

Results indicate that generational diversity negatively influences knowledge sharing among employees at work. However, the moderating roles of intergenerational climate and boundary-spanning leadership aid in mitigating this negative affect and facilitate knowledge sharing among employees, thereby, resulting in better group performance.

The study extends extant literature on generational diversity and differences by examining its impact on knowledge sharing and group performance. Further, the study also contributes by highlighting intergenerational climate and boundary-spanning leadership as key facilitators in promoting knowledge sharing among employees. Future research may include other industries/contexts to widen the generalizability of the findings and a longitudinal design to ascertain the causal effects.

This study identifies the need to effectively manage multigenerational workforce to capitalize on the unique benefits of each generation. An intergenerational climate free from ageist attitudes and employing leaders possessing boundary-spanning abilities would help organizations to create an inclusive workplace.

The authors attempt to explore the relationship between generational diversity, knowledge sharing, and group performance through the moderating effects of intergenerational climate and boundary-spanning leadership, which has not been studied in the past.

The article presents a discussion of issues of human resource diversity and diversity climates in organisations and develops a conceptual model of a “positive climate for diversity” (PCFD). This refers to the degree to which there is an organisational climate in which human resource diversity is valued and in which employees’ from diverse backgrounds feel welcomed and included. It presents a model of the indicators of a positive climate for diversity and the outcomes for organisations and individuals of such a climate, especially individual career and organisational attitudes and perceptions. It also presents variables which have a moderating effect in the model. The results of research from both private and public sector organisations, with emphasis on service, indicate that climates for diversity do impact significantly on a range of career and organisational attitudes and perceptions. The research and managerial implications are discussed.

This paper aims to examine the impact of individual and group-level variables on knowledge exchange and identification in age diverse teams. From a diversity perspective, influences of age-related diversity perceptions and diversity beliefs (level 1) are compared with effects of objective age diversity (level 2). From a management perspective, the paper goes beyond age diversity and investigates the incremental effects of team and individual characteristics from a team learning perspective.

Questionnaire data of 516 team members and their supervisors in 73 organizational teams were analyzed in a multilevel approach.

Objective age diversity had a negative effect on knowledge exchange and identification. Beyond that, age-related diversity perceptions and positive diversity beliefs on the individual level predict the effect of objective diversity. Relativizing the impact of diversity, individual characteristics (knowing the team experts, clear understanding of goals) and team characteristics (team climate, time for knowledge exchange) explain the largest proportion of variance in the dependent variables underlining the importance of team learning variables.

Compared to objective diversity, subjective diversity perceptions and diversity beliefs are relevant predictors of processes and attitudes in heterogenic teams.

There are multiple leverages for management strategies beyond the mostly fixed age diversity in teams on the individual and group level.

This paper evaluates the cross-level interplay between objective diversity, perceived subjective diversity and diversity beliefs and revalues the impact of HR-management in age diverse teams.

Research on diversity climate has shown that diversity climate as an employee's perception of an organization's diversity-related practices or procedures has a positive impact on reducing turnover intentions. However, we know little about which intervening mechanism explains the relationship between diversity climate and employee's turnover intentions. In this study, we suggest that individual employee's perceived diversity climate influences turnover intentions through personal diversity value and affective commitment.

With a sample of 901 employees in more than 50 companies affiliated in South Korea, the authors test the hypothesized relationship, using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Our findings show that personal diversity value and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived diversity climate and turnover intentions.

This study can enhance the understanding about the mediating mechanism linking the relationship between perceived diversity climate and turnover intentions and how personal diversity value and affective commitment link the relationship.

The authors theorize and find that perceived diversity climate can influence personal diversity value that results in employee commitment and turnover intentions.

Over the past decade, the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to uncover ways to leverage this increasing diversity to enhance business performance. To date, research evidence has failed to provide consistent support for the value of diversity to organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, scholars have shifted their attention to diversity management as a means to fully realize the potential benefits of diversity in organizations. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current wisdom on the study of diversity climate in organizations. Defined as the extent that employees view an organization as utilizing fair personnel practices and socially integrating all personnel into the work environment, diversity climate has been proposed as a catalyst for unlocking the full value of diversity in organizations. During our review, we discuss the existent individual- and aggregate-level research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, summarize the key research findings and themes gleaned from work in each domain, and note the limitations of diversity climate research. Finally, we highlight the domains of uncertainty regarding diversity climate research, and offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of diversity climate effects on organizational outcomes.

Past research on how to compose a team is ambiguous, especially with respect to diversity dimensions. The authors argue that previous inconsistencies in results have arisen for two main reasons. First, there is a lack of clarity about the concept of age diversity, as age separation, age variety and age disparity are frequently used synonymously, but capture very different aspects of diversity. Second, in many research settings, age and tenure diversity have been intertwined. When staffing teams, many staff managers ask for staffing advise concerning staff diversity in order to enhance efficiency. This staffing problem is mainly a question how homogeneous and heterogeneous teams should be composed. In this paper, the authors capture both – age and tenure diversity – as well as their interaction and argue that age separation and tenure variety are most likely to affect team performance in a routine task. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors are testing the hypothesis using rich quantitative field data from a steel company.

The results show that age separation decreases performance while tenure variety increases performance. Moreover, the beneficial effects of tenure variety cannot arise when age separation is too large.

The authors show that diversity research is very sensitive to the operationalization of diversity.

Managers can benefit from the study by learning how to optimally staff teams: while age diversity should be low, tenure diversity can be high.

Due to the unique data set, the authors can separate the influence of tenure and age diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how diversity climate in service organizations influence employee learning behavior. Additionally, the study examined the mediating effects of psychological safety and communication satisfaction between diversity climate and learning behavior.

Data were collected from 128 hotel and lodging managers by administering survey questionnaires. The dual mediational model was tested using the mediation test suggested by Preacher and Hayes (2008).

Results indicated that when managers perceived a positive diversity climate they also reported high engagement in learning behavior. Additionally, the study found the mediating effects of psychological safety and communication satisfaction.

The importance of learning behavior has been noted by researchers and practitioners because of its influence on service performance. Learning behavior is especially important in complex, error prone, and fast changing businesses like the services industry. This research contributes to the existing body of research by examining the influence of diversity climate on learning behavior, which has not been investigated empirically in the literature. The current research not only makes a significant contribution to the learning and diversity literature, but also informs practitioners how learning behavior can be increased and how diversity climate can be created in within service organizations, in particularly hospitality.