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What Are the Benefits of Focusing on Generation-Based Differences and at What Cost?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

David M. Cadiz ,
Donald M. Truxillo  and
Franco Fraccaroli
David M. Cadiz*
Affiliation:
Oregon Nurses Foundation, Tualatin, Oregon
Donald M. Truxillo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Portland State University
Franco Fraccaroli
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento-Polo di Rovereto
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David M. Cadiz, Oregon Nurses Foundation, 18765 SW Boones Ferry Road, Suite 200 Tualatin, Oregon 97062. E-mail: dave.cadiz@gmail.com
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Extract

We agree with and expand on the points made by Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) regarding the definition of “generation” and its measurement, the lack of theory in this area; the harmful effects of propagating generationally based differences to organizations, society, and individuals; and the future directions to make this line of research more applicable to organizations and the workplace. Examining age differences at work through the lens of well-established within-person changes in physical ability (e.g., Maertens, Putter, Chen, Diehl, & Huang, 2012), cognition (e.g., Schaie, 1994), motivation (e.g., Kooij, De Lange, Jansen, Kanfer, & Dikkers, 2011), personality (e.g., Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006), and lifespan development theories (e.g., Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) would likely be more productive than using loose, relatively atheoretical generational stereotypes to understand age differences at work.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 356 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

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