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This paper compares the work values of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) millennials with their parents.

The Chinese version of the multidimensional work ethic profile (1. productive use of time; 2. centrality of work; 3. hard work; 4. delay of gratification; 5. leisure; 6. self-reliance; and 7. moral reasoning) was used to survey PRC millennials and their parents. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for comparing work values for a subsample of 68 same-gender parent/child dyads. A one-way ANOVA was used for comparing the work values of the total sample of 217 PRC millennials and their parents.

The repeated measures ANOVA found that one of the seven work values for the male dyads and three of the seven work values for the female dyads were significantly different. The one-way ANOVA found that four of the seven work values for males grouping and five of the seven work values for the females grouping were significantly different.

Social norms and socialization by parents may moderate the influences of changing social conditions on personal values formation predicted by the theory of generations. Researchers need to sample across demographic and socioeconomic subgroups to understand subgroup differences when conducting cross-generational research. Taking large samples, aggregating data and drawing conclusions about cross-generational values may not be a valid approach in trying to understand the complexity of cross-generational values differences.

Managers should be wary of broad declarations about cross-generational values differences. The differences in generational values are nuanced.

This paper shows when controlling for same-gender parents, cross-generational values are very similar. This contrasts other findings on cross-generational values.

This paper seeks to investigate how cross‐generational biases affect tacit knowledge transfer and resulting knowledge flows in edge organizations.

The paper applied hypothesis testing χ²s, as well as ethnographic analysis.

Cross‐generational biases affect tacit knowledge transfer and resulting knowledge flows in edge‐like organizations. Other factors, such as trust, loyalty, work ethics, and family values, also affect knowledge flows.

Sample size should be increased for future work, as well as applying the results in a defense/military environment.

The results of the paper should influence succession planning, human capital strategy, and knowledge management efforts in edge‐like organizations.

The work is quite novel as it integrates inter‐generational differences, tacit knowledge transfer, and knowledge flows in edge organizations.

Interest in generational research has garnered a lot of attention, as the workplace is seeing multiple generations (i.e., the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials) working side-by-side for the first time. However, it is unclear how multiple generations of workers interact with each other and affect the workplace. Although there is extant literature on generational differences, some scholars have argued that the effect sizes are small and the differences are not meaningful. The focal aim of this chapter is to present the current state of literature on generational research. We present the relevant conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks that establish generational research. We then review evidence from existing research studies to establish the areas of differences that may exist among the different generations. In our review, we identify the issues arising from generational differences that are relevant to human resource management (HRM) practices, including new workforce entrants, aging workers, the changing nature of work and organizations, and leadership development. We conclude with several directions for future research on modernizing workplace policies and practices, ensuring sustainability in current employment models, facilitating future empirical research, and integrating the effects of globalization in generational research.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to determine if job satisfaction increases with age, and if this is consistent across countries; and second, if individuals belonging to the same age cohort, who experience similar life conditions and events and have been posited to share common attitudes and behaviors, differ in terms of job satisfaction, and if this difference is comparable across countries.

The study provides a comparative analysis of the impact of age and generational differences on job satisfaction globally, based on non-panel longitudinal data from the most recent wave of the International Social Survey Program (Work Orientations IV, 2015).

Age has a positive statistically significant impact on job satisfaction (e.g. the older you get, the more satisfied you are with your job). However, the same analysis with each specific age cohort indicates that age is only statistically significant with the baby boomers. Statistically significant cross-generational differences exist in the levels of job satisfaction across generations and cross-generational differences in the determinants of job satisfaction. Most differences are seen between the silent generation and the other three age cohorts.

Previous comparative studies have found that job satisfaction across generations, even within the same or similar countries, shows little variation. Research measuring the relationship between age and job satisfaction indicates three key contradictory findings – satisfaction increases with age, decreases with age, or no relationship exists. The current large-scale, global study updates and extends previous research by exploring similarities and differences in job satisfaction and work quality characteristics by age cohort, with a global sample.

This paper seeks to enhance team performance by intersecting two existing literature streams, generational influences and working teams. This paper aims to boost project objective achievement through the instrumental use of generational competencies despite temporary and provisional project team environments. This supports project team leaders in harnessing diverse generational competencies of contributors to maximize outcomes.

The authors adopt the simultaneous use of social categorization and information processing to connect these diverse literature streams, highlighting the value system and skills of each generation to maximize working benefits.

Project team leader’s tactical deployment of generational competencies may positively contribute to execution and increased goal achievement. The increasingly provisional nature of workforce teams magnifies the need for intentional team management. Embracing generational competencies may elevate team members, increase productivity and decrease turnover.

This paper offers a pathway to couple team execution and generational differences by identifying generational traits which may benefit execution-focused, but provisional teams.

Rather than managing team members to fit into a specific work process, this paper explores the benefits associated with team leader acceptance and strategic use of diverse generational behaviours.

The authors expand upon team diversity by intersecting execution-based and provisional project teams with the intentional use of generational influences to build trust and further positive outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the predictive factors of information seeking behavior of smartphone users from the cross-generational perspective. Based on existing literature, the two most popular types of information seeking behavior of smartphone users were determined: social information seeking behavior; and functional/cognitive information seeking behavior.

A questionnaire comprising 66 questions was administered online to 216 smartphone users of three age groups according to three generations: generation X, Y (millennials) and Z. Several predictive factors were examined for each of these information seeking behavior types: generation, gender, personality traits (the Big Five), daily usage time, period of ownership, various application utilization and the level of emotional gain from smartphones.

There is a trade-off between the two types of information seeking behavior. Also, men exhibited significantly more functional/cognitive information seeking behavior than women, and younger generations reported significantly higher emotional gain and social information seeking behavior than older generations. Interestingly, significant differences in smartphone apps’ utilization, information seeking behavior types and their predictive factors were found among users from different generations. Extraversion was positively related to social information seeking behavior only for generations X and Y, while WhatsApp usage was one of the strongest predictive factors only for generation Z.

This research has practical implications for information system design, education, e-commerce and libraries.

This is a first study that systematically examines predictive factors of the two prominent types of information seeking behavior on smartphones from the cross-generational perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues around a multiple generational workforce and more specifically, the challenges and benefits for education providers and employers.

Reviewing research papers, analysing academic texts, interrogating market intelligence and contextualising case studies, the paper examines the “experience” or “qualifications” debate alongside the similarities, differences and overlaps of the cross‐generational workforce, with a view to offering education/training solutions.

Demographic forecasts suggest that the UK workplace will imminently be dominated by older, experienced employees. As the composition of the workplace shifts, examining the inter‐relationship between groups of workers of different ages/profiles who have different skills, attitudes, expectations and learning styles is vital. The synergy caused by this inter‐mingling cannot help but impact on employers, sectors and higher education institutions.

Data around the “older” graduate is not readily available – there is still an implicit belief that “graduate” means approximately 21/22 years old. Whilst many general demographic forecasts are produced, the future is still relatively unknown.

The paper builds upon the authors’ own original research into the employment market from an HE perspective. Little has been so far published around how the generations might usefully work together, especially the idea of adapting the skills and maximising on the overlaps of different generational profiles. The exploration of the hybrid graduate is also a new area for academic research.

This study investigates how sustainability influences employer branding across generational cohorts – Generations Z, Y and X – and between two neighboring countries, Slovenia and Croatia, with different economic development levels.

A comparative cross-generational survey was conducted among respondents from Slovenia and Croatia to assess the impact of sustainability on employer brand perception. The survey explored generational attitudes toward sustainability and its integration into the employer value proposition.

The study found that all the generational cohorts view sustainability as an important factor in their evaluation of employer brands. Generation X showed the most favorable attitude toward sustainability, followed by Generation Z, highlighting the need for organizations to communicate sustainability efforts effectively to attract these groups. However, there were subtle differences between the countries, with Slovenian respondents indicating a slightly higher preference for sustainable practices. Additionally, while Generation Z may not have the same financial leverage as Generation X, their high valuation of sustainability in employer branding demonstrates their future influence as they enter the workforce.

Limitations include the survey’s conceptual framing, which may be inherently biased toward the more affluent Generation X’s capacity to prioritize sustainability and the focus on USA-based generational definitions, which may not be fully applicable across different cultural settings. Future research could address these limitations by refining the conceptual approach and expanding the sample to include more diverse geographical contexts.

By comparing responses from two economically distinct neighboring countries, the study reveals complex inter-generational dynamics and national contexts affecting sustainability’s role in employer attractiveness.

This article aims to develop the methodological and intellectual approach taken in the authors' co‐authored book to explore the synergies and disconnections in the experience of being in the academy at different historical moments using the inter‐relationship between different feminisms in the context of the authors' lived experiences as a mother and daughter whose experience of the academy has crossed second‐wave feminism into third wave. There have been significant demographic, cultural and legislative shifts, but the authors' conversations demonstrate the endurance of imbalances of power and the continuing need for a feminist politics of difference which can engage with contemporary life in the academy.

This is primarily a theoretical paper that adopts feminist approaches to reflection and dialogue. The article is designed to bring together lived experience across generations, feminist theories and methodologies and the implications for activism. The paper uses the device of “I‐Kath I‐Sophie” as part of an autoethnographic approach to the cross‐generational conversation.

Far from being redundant, the authors argue that feminist critiques of inequalities that are often manifest in women's invisibility and silence even in the academy in the twenty‐first century – there is still the need to support a politics of difference and to explore ways of giving women a voice. The persistence of inequalities means that feminist battles have not been entirely won. The authors argue for dialogue between the feminisms of mothers and daughters.

Feminist concepts and arguments from what has been called the “second wave” are still useful, especially in relation to maintaining the category woman as a speaking subject who can engage in collective action.

The authors' arguments support the continuation of spaces for women to share experience within the academy, for example in feminist reading groups and through women's networks.

Feminist theories and activism remain important political forces for women in the academy today and post feminism is a questionable conceptualisation and phenomenon. In times when feminist battles may seem to have been won there remain issues to explore in relation to a new problem with no name.

The article is original in its authorship, methodological approach to a conversation that crosses experience and theoretical frameworks across generations and in its support for a twenty‐first century politics of difference.

The purpose of this study is to present the Generation X and Generation Y customers’ expectations of utility retail stores in an Asian setting of Pakistan Research studies that advocate a cross-generational perspective to retail service quality have been limited.

Sketching through a naturalistic paradigm, data for this exploratory study is collected from 80 retail shoppers through face-to-face interviews. The data is noted, coded and presented through the genre of service marketing mix theory.

There are significant differences with regards to variety of products offered and time consumed during shopping have been found between generational cohorts belonging to Generation X and Generation Y customers. However, there are a few similarities noted between the two types of customers that challenge the traditional perspective of retail service marketing mix theory.

The study is an original contribution towards explaining the retail service quality construct from cross-generational marketing perspective. Pragmatically, the utility stores have never been the subject matter for service quality studies in countries such as Pakistan.