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This paper aims to examine two types of age-related human resources (HR) practices, i.e. age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices and firm-level (meso-level) factors that foster or hinder the implementation of these two types of practices.

Based on a cross-case analysis of four firms across industries in Thailand, a developing country, the empirical evidence draws on semi-structured interviews with the top managers, HR managers and aging employees of four firms; field visits; nonparticipant observations; and a review of archival documents and Web-based reports and resources.

This paper proposes that age-specific HR practices primarily include those HR practices under the regulation HR bundle and some HR practices under the maintenance and recovery HR bundles. Additionally, the factors fostering the implementation of age-specific HR practices in firms include group corporate culture, nonunionism within the workplace, paternalistic leaders, a focus on the development of internal labor markets within firms and the need for tacit knowledge transfer from aging employees to younger-generation employees, whereas the factors hindering the implementation of age-specific HR practices in firms include age biases within firms. Moreover, age-inclusive HR practices primarily include HR practices under the development HR bundle and some HR practices under the maintenance and recovery HR bundles. Additionally, the factors fostering the implementation of age-inclusive HR practices in firms include the procedural justice climate, the transition from a family ownership structure to a professional ownership structure and result-/output-based corporate culture, whereas the factors hindering the implementation of age-inclusive HR practices in firms include experience-/seniority-based corporate culture. In fact, some of the meso-level factors that foster or hinder the implementation of age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices tend to be influenced by the national institutional and cultural contexts of the developing country where firms that implement such HR practices are located.

This paper aims to fill the research gap by examining both age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices. Additionally, this paper analyzes the factors fostering or hindering the implementation of these two dimensions of age-related HR practices across firms by using a case study of firms in Thailand, a developing country. To date, most studies in this area have focused on one of these dimensions, while comparisons between different HR dimensions are rather scarce. Finally, this paper contributes to the prior literature on strategic HR and comparative institutional perspective on HR strategies and practices as proposed by Batt and Banerjee (2012) and Batt and Hermans (2012) that future research should go beyond the meso-level (organizational) context. In this regard, some of the factors that foster or hinder the implementation of age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices tend to be influenced by the national institutional and cultural contexts of the developing country of Thailand.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perception of HRM practices and the retirement decision of older workers with a low occupational status in the creative industry in the Netherlands using social identity theory.

In total, 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted by telephone. The sample consisted of workers with a low occupational status, aged 50 or above, in the creative industry in the Netherlands, all member of the trade union of this industry.

The relationship between HRM practices and retirement decisions is complex and contradictory. In line with social identity theory, it was found that HRM practices designed for older workers were perceived as a stamp that they belonged to a devalued social group. However, they do want organizations to accommodate their needs, but in a way that they do not feel to require special attention.

The findings show that older workers want organizations to adapt the workplace to their needs, but that the provision of age-specific practices could prevent them from constructing a positive social identity. HR practices can only make older workers extend their working lives if they are provided to all workers regardless occupational status or age.

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 demographic changes impact the workplace, governments, organizations, and workers are looking for ways to sustain optimal working lives at higher ages. Workplace flexibility has been introduced as a potential way workers can have more satisfying working lives until their retirement ages. This chapter presents a critical review of the literature on workplace flexibility across the lifespan. It discusses how flexibility has been conceptualized across different disciplines, and postulates a definition that captures the joint roles of employer and employee in negotiating workplace flexibility that contributes to both employee and organization benefits. Moreover, it reviews how flexibility has been theorized and investigated in relation to older workers. The chapter ends with a future research agenda for advancing understanding of how workplace flexibility may enhance working experiences of older workers, and in particular focuses on the critical investigation of uses of flexibility in relation to older workers.

The purpose of this study is to identify the different research strands concerning studies related to human resource management (HRM) and ageing employees. More specifically, the paper analyses how age and gender are understood and conceptualized in these studies.

An integrative literature review concerning ageing employees and HRM with special reference to gender is the approach taken in this paper.

Recent studies relating to HRM and ageing employees were categorized and analysed. The paper concludes that there is a need for a more holistic understanding of the concept of age in studies related to ageing employees and HRM and also argues that the intersection of age and gender is under-researched in the field of HRM.

Based on literature review the paper outlined directions for how gender-neutral age management studies may be extended. A pluralist understanding of age and gender would help to understand the different needs and expectations that ageing employees may have in terms of HR practices and policies. Institutional practices and legislation can promote equality, but organizational contexts, both internal and external, should be scanned in order to recognize possible ageist or age-blind practices. Ageing women in particular have the burden of being recognized in terms of chronological stereotyped changes that might damage their work and career.

Research on ageing employees and HRM with special reference to gender is limited and therefore an integrative literature review is needed.

The study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-provided benefits on employees' intention to leave in different age cohorts during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Informed by the psychological theories of ageing, the authors propose three age-cohort-specific hypotheses in three motivational domains: security and health benefits, flexible work arrangement and education-related benefits.

The authors use a large survey of employees in Estonia (n = 7,209) conducted in 2020 and test the association of specific benefits and their interactions with age on employees' intention to leave.

The results show that older cohorts are generally less prone to leave their jobs. Benefits that employers could use during the COVID-19 crisis generally had negative associations with the intention to leave, but age-specific differences were negligible; only the perceived provision of flexible work arrangements reduced the younger cohort's intention to leave relatively more.

This study is one of the few that allows us to make inferences regarding the benefits preferences amongst the working population during an unprecedented health crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to review good practice examples which promote recruitment and retention of older workers and/or the employability of workers as they age and to examine pathways of practice.

Analysis of qualitative data, drawing on a cross‐section selection of 83 good practice case studies in labour organisations in eight European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.

The study presented good practice examples and pathways of practice for the four most frequently found dimensions in the sample (training, lifelong learning and knowledge transfer; flexible working; health protection and promotion and job design; career development and mobility management) as well as examples from small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) (construction) and the public sector (transport) adopting strategies that fall within these dimensions. These examples show that innovative solutions to the challenge of an ageing workforce have been developed with good outcomes, often combining a number of measures, e.g. mobility management, health promotion and knowledge transfer. However, there is an uneven profile of age management debates and company strategies across Europe (with countries such as Germany and the Netherlands being more advanced). There is also some evidence of a standstill or roll‐back of measures during an economic crisis.

The paper reviews organisational measures facilitating the extension of working lives, of which many are longstanding and include sectors previously underrepresented in good practice databases (SMEs, public sector).

This study aims to empirically examine the underlying cultures of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities contributing toward employee: compensation and benefits (CB); diversity and labor rights (DLR); and training, safety and health (TSH), with a view of supporting both business corporations and policymakers in effectively designing and implementing employee-related CSR strategies in the global market.

The proposed empirical model, namely, pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression, is tested against a novel proprietary data set of 8,940 corporations from 48 countries across nine different regions. The prototypical models of cultural configurations are benchmarked against Hofstede’s country cultural scores on six dimensions to categorize the lists of countries in which the three specific employee-related CSR activities would appear to be culturally appropriate, as well as difficult to implement.

The study offers the cultural configuration models to identify the potential nature and range of cultural values that seem to support CSR activities contributing toward employee: CB – high power distance, high individualism, low masculinity, low uncertainty avoidance, medium long-term orientation and either relatively medium or low indulgence; DLR – medium power distance, medium individualism, low masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, either relatively medium or low long-term orientation and medium indulgence; TSH – medium power distance, medium individualism, low masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, medium long-term orientation and medium indulgence. The study further categorizes countries (cultural areas) in which these three specific employee-related CSR activities would appear to be culturally appropriate, as well as difficult to implement.

The findings provide both the motivation and a starting point for further academic inquiries. First, future research should further explore how specific industry and firm size have an impact on firms’ employee-related CSR activities. Second, the dynamic relationship of national culture and employee-related CSR activities over time should also be examined. Finally, appropriate management techniques or interventions to overcome the cultural constraints that prevent business corporations from promoting employee physical and mental fineness should also be fruitful area for further investigation.

The study offers meaningful strategic implications of employee-related CSR activities for business corporations and policymakers. Specifically, the cultural configuration models, together with the practical framework, should serve as a benchmark for evaluating a likelihood of successful implementation on a particular employee-related CSR activity in a given context and for customizing business corporations’ CSR strategies and activities to fit within a cultural environment of the host country in which they operate. For policymakers dealing with employee rights and labor standards, the findings can be applied to assess foreign investor’s preferences regarding employee-related CSR engagement and activities.

This is the first study to develop the cultural configuration models that provide business corporations culturally meaningful insights into how to effectively design and implement their employee-related CSR strategies in the global market. The study also offers a practical framework – a set of countries in the global marketplace where employee-related CSR activities are likely to be implemented successfully, or encounter challenges and difficulties.