Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior
ISSN: 0048-3486
Article publication date: 19 January 2021
Issue publication date: 11 March 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. The purpose of this article is to improve the understanding of how age affects individuals' work-related attitudes and behaviors, the authors take a life span perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected responses from 270 employees of multinational firms operating in India and conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the hypotheses.
Findings
The authors found that age profiles are significant predictors of work engagement. Specifically, the relationship between development opportunities and work engagement was stronger for younger employees than for older employees. However, age profiles were neither positively related to OCB nor a moderator of the job resources–OCB relationship.
Originality/value
The findings provide empirical evidence of the life span perspective, suggesting that age profiles influence work engagement. This is pertinent for organizations offering employees development opportunities to enhance work engagement.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Change Management Consortium based at the University of Bath in the UK for their efforts in data collection for this study.
Citation
Zhang, L. and Farndale, E. (2022), "Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior", Personnel Review, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 194-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-02-2020-0095
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited