Understanding the motivational benefits of knowledge transfer for older and younger workers in age-diverse coworker dyads: An actor–partner interdependence model.

Abstract

The growing age diversity in organizations in most industrialized economies provides opportunities to motivate both older and younger workers by enabling them to benefit from each other through knowledge transfer. In this study, we integrate self-determination theory with socio-emotional selectivity theory to argue that the alignment between workers' age and their roles in knowledge transfer can generate motivational benefits for them. More specifically, we argue that receiving knowledge from coworkers (i.e., actor knowledge receiving) is more closely aligned with younger workers' goal priorities, while having coworkers receive one's knowledge (i.e., partner knowledge receiving) is more closely aligned with older workers' goal priorities. We expect that these motivational benefits manifest in younger and older workers' need fulfillment at work, which can shape their subsequent intention to remain with the organization. We used an actor-partner interdependence model to test our hypotheses with time-lagged data from a sample of 173 age-diverse coworker dyads, and found support for most of our hypotheses. The age-specific motivational perspective that we adopt has implications for self-determination theory and research on knowledge transfer and mentoring.

O cenário do mercado de trabalho para idosos e a violência sofrida

“…Com o envelhecimento populacional, ocorrem maiores interações sociais entre pessoas de diferentes idades no mercado de trabalho. Estudo americano desenvolvido por Burmeister et al 22 verificou que a presença de pessoas idosas na empresa torna-se vantajosa, pois proporciona troca de conhecimento entre as gerações, motiva os funcionários e proporciona maior anseio do idoso em permanecer ativo.…”

“…Burmeister et al 22 Estados Unidos A presença de funcionários de diferentes faixas-etárias no trabalho proporciona troca de conhecimento, satisfação e motivação dos trabalhadores.…”

Explaining Age Differences in the Motivating Potential of Intergenerational Contact at Work

“…Intergenerational contact may be particularly beneficial for improving employees' sense of belonging. First, older and younger coworkers are highly effective in providing each other with support and assistance because their experiences, networks, and insights are nonredundant and often complementary (Burmeister et al, 2020;Gerpott et al, 2017;Li et al, in press). Older workers can help younger workers to understand how to interact with others in more meaningful ways to build long-lasting relationships (Gerpott et al, 2017), while younger workers can help older workers by demonstrating how to handle complexity and connect with a wider range of different people based on their larger social networks (Li et al, in press).…”

Globalization and its impact on employee motivation

“…A motivated and satisfied workforce brings benefits not only to the organizations themselves in terms of higher performance, but also to the economy as a whole, and therefore age management is becoming increasingly important [7] [14]. The growing age diversity in organizations in most industrialized economies provides opportunities to motivate both older and younger workers by enabling them to benefit from each other through knowledge transfer [15]. The human resources of a company largely depend on how the company can respond to challenges of the market.…”