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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 tendency to study autistic children has resulted in the lack of research about autistic seniors. This chapter begins by showing the results of two studies that have measured the volume of research about autistics based on age brackets. Two factors that have hampered research about autistic seniors are then presented. This chapter then concludes by highlighting seven topics where more research can be conducted about autistic seniors. These topics are research about their physical health, cognitive abilities, mental health, employment, transport, healthcare and specific issues relating to autistics residing in a nursing home/aged care facility.

The original contribution that this chapter makes to autism spectrum research is to examine the imbalance in research between autistic children and autistic seniors and to provide several suggestions where more research can be conducted about autistic seniors.

This chapter outlines several approaches that researchers can use to help them conduct research that respects and includes autistic participants. It begins by highlighting some of the factors that should be considered before, during and after a study is conducted. It then explains some of the benefits and drawbacks of harvesting data from social media. It then concludes with a set of recommendations about inclusive research practices that can help autistic participants be equals in the research process.

The original contribution that this chapter gives to the field of autism spectrum research is to provide researchers with a clear and comprehensive outline of how to conduct research that is inclusive and respectful of autistic participants.

This chapter considers young people’s experiences of inequality as being unemployed in a small seaside town in the United Kingdom which has high levels of deprivation. It draws upon qualitative data from a study undertaken with 52 young people aged between 16 and 24, undertaken in 2015, to examine the impact of the economic recession on their lived experiences of seeking work and poverty. All the young people who participated in the study stated that they wanted to work but that there simply were not jobs available for them to do. What work they could find was often poorly paid, temporary and involved travel which they could not afford. The financial sanctions imposed on them by the Job Centre resulted in extreme hardship, hunger and homelessness. Often the young people talked about various forms of crime including drug-dealing and drug-taking as a way of dealing with the consequences of unemployment.

In this chapter, we explore the changing role of social media and its increasing influence in the recruitment and selection process. Access to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as profiling tools both inside and outside the workplace is generating a number of potential ethical, legal, and moral dilemmas in the human resource management (HRM) field.

This is a conceptual chapter which analyzed peer-reviewed academic literature, the business press, and other media outlets.

This conceptual chapter outlines the key issues for HR academics and professionals in the area of recruitment and selection associated with the changing role of social media in the workplace, and how it indirectly affects a number of other HR practices. Certain emergent practices such as cyber-vetting and applicant data mining demonstrate a deficiency in moral, ethical, and legal frameworks. The lack of attention paid to these new HR risks highlight the skill gap within the HR profession to handle information and data security challenges, any of which can be exacerbated due to social media.

In order to assist HR in tackling these challenges, we conclude with a number of recommendations for HR practitioners.

The chapter helps raise awareness and understanding of this new and emerging aspect of digital HRM.

We provide a framework for a broader understanding of the issues associated with cyber-vetting and its potential impact on HRM policies and practices.

Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations in Denmark and the United States, this chapter compares discourses and experiences of young unemployed professionals engaged in networking. Common across both sites is the kind of emotional labor perceived to be required for effective networking, with workers frequently drawing on romantic dating as a key metaphor. However, engagement in such emotional labor is more intense and pervasive for American jobseekers, while Danish jobseekers express greater concern about potential exploitation of the other party, corruption, and pressure to conform to norms of marketability. The chapter discusses possible links among networking experiences, hiring practices and political-economic contexts in the United States and Denmark.

Purpose – To extend understanding of the rituals and practices of alcohol consumption through a focus on the consumption object (the Dirty Pint) as a central actant in the practices of extreme alcohol consumption.

Design/methodology/approach – Seventeen paired and group interviews were conducted with young consumers (aged 16–18). An Actor-Network Theory (ANT)-inspired approach to data analysis was used in conjunction with Bourdieu's key concepts of habitus, field and capital to present a detailed understanding of the practices and rituals of extreme alcohol consumption.

Findings – The same consumption object takes on a very different role and has different forms of agency, depending on the social space (field) in which it is embedded. The Dirty Pint acts differently within different social spaces or sub-fields of the field of adolescence, particularly when combined with individual subjects of differing habitus to produce an object+subject hybrid.

Social implications – Paying attention to all the relevant actants (both human and non-human) involved in the practice of alcohol consumption could lead to more novel and relevant alcohol-harm reduction strategies or campaigns that young people can both relate to and take more seriously.

Originality/value of paper – We stress the need to grant greater agency to objects in studying consumption practices and identity enactment and contribute to the literature on identity by extending Gergen's (2009) ‘relational being’, conceiving of the self as embedded in both inter-subjective and inter-objective interactions and relationships (Latour, 1996).