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It is important to understand why some workers prolong their working life even though they are entitled to statutory pension benefits. This paper aims to investigate whether senior workers are motivated by external factors such as pay and social expectations (extrinsic motivation) or are primarily motivated by internal factors such as job satisfaction (intrinsic motivation). This is a central question for policymakers and social partners when it comes to the design of public pension systems and work organisation.

This study uses a combined longitudinal administrative data and an own-designed postal survey to ask individuals aged 65–76 years to describe their work motivation. Based on the answers, this study constructs an index of autonomous motivation (AM) where a value of zero implies only extrinsic motivation and a value of one implies only intrinsic motivation. The values between zero and one thus imply various grades of AM, where higher values signal motivation that is more autonomous and hence a higher degree of intrinsic work motivation.

The results of the statistical analysis show that the extent of intrinsic motivation is higher among senior workers who retired aged 65 years or older compared to those who retired at 65 years or younger. In addition, this study found that the degree of intrinsic work motivation among senior workers decreases when they face economic and financial constraints. It also found that intrinsic motivation is more prevalent among high-skilled workers.

This study shows that individuals who continue to work after 65 are mostly motivated by the satisfaction they derive from their job. Job satisfaction is strongly related to skill level, job quality, job content and job autonomy. Results indicate that job quality and commitment to work are essential elements for motivating seniors to postpone retirement.

This study contributes to this literature by applying a multidisciplinary approach from organisational psychology and labour economics that considers the potential importance of intrinsic motivation to work after standard retirement age. The authors think that this approach enhances the understanding of the mechanisms behind the lengthening of working life. Finally, this study suggests a simple, but efficient way of empirically measuring the extent of intrinsic motivation among workers.

The Sri Lanka Telecommunications company was recently partially privatised and a major Japanese company became responsible for its management. Previously, it was a government department characterised by rule bound, bureaucratic management and political interventions into operational issues. The longitudinal study illustrates how a Japanese manager's charismatic and patrimonial leadership eliminated bureaucratic controls, brought new management controls and reward systems, and achieved some commercial success. However, some employees unsympathetic to the changes allied with politicians frustrated with their exclusion from organisational affairs to get the Japanese manager removed and restore formal bureaucracy. This was achieved not through direct intervention but largely through the politicians' control of the regulatory system. Conflicts between the two competing management control ideologies were profound and violent. The paper traces how modes of production and management accounting and controls in less developed countries are related, and are transformed in an unpredictable and often unexpected fashion due to cultural, economic, and political factors.

A model of reputation is developed to show how firms operating in concentrated sectors can use the sponsorship of general human capital investments to specifically trained workers as a device of commitment with prospective employees. Employees of firms that operate in concentrated sectors learn skills that are valuable only for a limited number of alternative employers. This gives monopsonistic power to the training firm over the trained workers. Anticipating it, potential employees will be reluctant to work for the firm unless the employer is able to commit oneself’ must be turned back to ‘herself. I argue that human resource policies including the provision of general human capital to workers reduce employers’ commitment costs. Evidence from two representative samples of workers from Spain and the United Kingdom show that, consistent with the predictions of the model, firms from more concentrated sectors are more likely to sponsor their employees’ education.

The public sector is often considered the vanguard in terms of the availability and promotion of flexible working arrangements (FWAs). Despite this, little is known about how senior managers in the public sector engage with FWAs. This paper aims to address this gap, reporting on a number of issues, including the reality of FWAs, the existence of a flexibility stigma and whether this is gendered, and the drivers influencing the uptake of FWAs.

Theoretical insights of flexibility stigma from the literature and data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers in the Northern Ireland Civil Service explore the realities of FWAs at this level.

The findings indicate a decoupling between the rhetoric and reality of FWAs, with few senior managers availing of such arrangements. The authors also identify a complex web of issues that constrain senior managers' agency in shaping a positive culture of FWAs at senior management level in the Civil Service, including an inherent resistance to flexibility, a lack of visible role models and negative perceptions around progression. The findings also indicate deeply held perceptions among senior males and females that availing of FWAs is associated with a flexibility stigma. These perceptions were confirmed by the small number of senior females with caring responsibilities who were availing of FWAs.

The paper provides senior managers and human resource practitioners with insights into the difficulties associated with wide-scale FWA availability and use at senior levels of the Civil Service.

The findings of the study offer valuable insights into the experience of senior managers in the public sector as they engage with FWAs. The study, therefore, contributes to the limited literature in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to present a study of age management in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK.

Qualitative data collection and exploratory research with six SMEs comprising of: initial interviews with representatives from the SMEs; action research activities designed to raise awareness of age management issues and age discrimination legislation; and follow‐up interviews to ascertain if awareness raising activities resulted in any changes, or planned changes, in policy, practice and attitudes towards older workers.

Good practice in age management can be found in SMEs, but was not found to be part of a systematic strategy. Negative practices and attitudes towards older workers are observed, with positive and negative age stereotypes coexisting. Negative stereotypes displayed can undermine the perceived economic value of older workers. There may be a gap between policy and practice, but awareness raising campaigns that reach employers can influence existing ways of working by showing the benefits of an age diverse workforce and helping reduce prejudices against older workers.

The sample size is small and context specific. However, the study usefully illustrates different approaches to age management policies and practices in SMEs, and the potential benefits of age management awareness in influencing attitudes and practices towards older workers in SMEs.

The experience of age management in SMEs is under researched and examples of good practice in age management are often drawn from large organisations. The paper highlights that SMEs often lack the resources to seek advice regarding age management; therefore, those responsible for age management awareness raising activities may need to approach businesses directly.

The purpose of this paper is to explore responses of older workers and of managers to the call from the authorities to extend working life.

Data are from the Norwegian Senior Policy Barometer with interviews with samples of about 750 managers and 1,000 workers each year from 2003. There is no panel data.

Older workers increasingly prefer to extend their working career. The preferred age for exit has increased from 61 years in 2003 to 66 years in 2018. Managers seem less interested in expanding their older workforce. A majority of managers expressed quite positive conceptions of older workers' performance, but less often they liked to recruit older workers. As an average, managers told that they would hesitate to call in applicants above 58 years of age to job interviews. Age for hesitation is only moderately correlated (r = 0.29) to managers' beliefs about older workers’ performance at work. Thus, the managers' beliefs about older workers’ performance made only a small difference for their willingness to hire older workers.

The results suggest that counteracting stereotypes, prejudice and age discrimination in working life needs a broad approach, including attention to the affective component of ageism. For research, the measurement of the affective component needs consideration and further exploration.

The article brings data from a distinctive Norwegian context and approaches the rarely studied affective component of ageism in working life.

Job design/work organisation change continues to be the subject of much debate amongst practitioners and academics. Whilst many case examples have been reported (see Birchall and Burbridge for two reviews), often insufficient detail is provided to permit the reader to fully assess the impact of changes upon all parties involved. Rarely, for example, is reference made to planned changes which were not included in a final change programme. Here, we report a case involving changes in work organisation on a continuous process plant. Given space limitations we intend to concentrate upon a consideration of the approach adopted for the action research project, planned changes, the impact of those changes adopted upon management and employees and reasons for non‐adoption of some planned changes. The observations made derive from the views of the researchers involved in the project and their discussion with both managers and workers. Information from two surveys of employee attitudes is also included; the first was used as the basis for planning change and the second was undertaken eleven months following initial changes.

This article reports on the views of 92 social workers about their practice in adult protection in England and Wales as part of a wider study of adult protection working and regulation that took place between 2004‐2007 in 26 sample local authorities. The article explores social workers' reported experiences of partnership or multiagency working and how this, along with overarching regulatory frameworks, affected their practice within and across agencies. Among findings from the study were that social workers considered that sharing information and responsibilities led to positive outcomes for service users and that the incorporation of different agency perspectives supplemented sharing of best practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how innovation in children’s services is adopted and developed by staff within new multi-disciplinary children’s safeguarding teams. It draws on diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory to help us better understand the mechanisms by which the successful implementation of multi-disciplinary working can be best achieved.

It is based on interviews with 61 frontline safeguarding staff, including social workers, substance misuse workers, mental health workers and domestic abuse workers. Thematic analysis identified the enablers and barriers to implementation.

DOI defines five innovation attributes as essential for rapid diffusion: relative advantage over current practice; compatibility with existing values and practices; complexity or simplicity of implementation; trialability or piloting of new ideas; and observability or seeing results swiftly. Staff identified multi-disciplinary team working and group supervision as advantageous, in line with social work values and improved their service to children and families. Motivational interviewing and new ways of case recordings were less readily accepted because of the complexity of practicing confidently and concerns about the risks of moving away from exhaustive case recording which workers felt provided professional accountability.

DOI is a useful reflective tool for senior managers to plan and review change programmes, and to identify any emerging barriers to successful implementation.

The paper provides insights into what children’s services staff value about multi-disciplinary working and why some aspects of innovation are adopted more readily than others, depending on the perception of diffusion attributes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce new measures of stereotypical beliefs about older workers' ability and desire for learning and development and test relationships with key antecedents and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – In a sample of workers over 40 years of age from across the US workforce, a two‐wave survey study was unique in that it examined stereotypes held by aging workers themselves in relation to their own behavior. Findings – The psychometric qualities of the scales were positive and findings tied the stereotype measures to important outcome constructs involving retirement, interest in development, and self‐efficacy/concept for development. Relationships of the stereotype measures also existed with antecedent variables, including experience with the stereotyped behavior and general beliefs about changes with aging. Research limitations/implications – These are critical constructs for managerial psychology in the coming decades, and the findings and measures presented here can contribute to future research, not only on older workers themselves but also on younger workers' stereotypes and behavior toward older workers, which were not addressed here. Practical implications – The measures can be used as diagnostic tools and the findings offer potential ideas for organizational policy or interventions to target stereotypes. Originality/value – Because employee development is increasingly important and the workforce is rapidly aging, there is a need to understand development behavior by aging workers. While stereotypes can be a problem in this area, there is a lack of measures of these stereotypes and there is no research on the stereotypes by aging workers themselves.