The demographic time bomb

Transcription

1 April 25th, 9.00 am (Room RA1315) AGE DISSIMILARITY, ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION AND AGE DIVERSITY CLIMATE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY AMONG SCHOOL TEACHERS Alessia Sammarra University of L Aquila alessia.sammarra@univaq.it Laura Innocenti LUISS Business School linnocenti@luiss.it Silvia Profili Università Europea di Roma Silvia.profili@unieur.it The demographic time bomb RATIO OF YOUNG TO OLD Today, 4 young workers per senior (over age 65) By 2060, 2 young workers per senior (over age 65) 1

2 Low employers awareness and proactivity We have no mandatory retirement age, Dave, but under under certain conditions we tend to encourage people to die Why is this relevant? Companies productivity depends more and more on older workers, which represent in most industries a significant proportion of the workforce The expectations of workers that are over 50 have changed as a result of the pension reform and better health status Young workers are often a minority within organizations The distance among employees at both extreme ends of the age continuum is growing, increasing age diversity 2

3 Research question AGE DIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION Absenteism Turnover Commitment OCB Age diversity: a double-edged sword A lot of unexplained variation in the main effect of DIVERSITY on individual, group and organizational level work attitudes and behaviours (Guillaume, Brodbeck, and Riketta, 2012) How to explain these mixed results? DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY -/+? Work attitudes & behaviours 3

4 Theoretical perspectives (1) Social Identity Approach (SIA) - Self-categorization theory (Turner, 1982) - Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel and Turner, 1979) An individual identify with a group on the basis of his/her perception of similarity or dissimilarity of others, indexed by demographic attributes that represent relevant cognitive categories. Being a minority enphasizes distinctiveness and category salience The Information and Decisionmaking Perspective (IDP) (Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991) The exposure to more diverse information and perspectives creates the opportunity for deeper analysis and favours more thorough and creative information processing. DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY Work attitudes & behaviours Theoretical perspectives (2) Social Identity Approach (SIA) The Information and Decisionmaking Perspective (IDP) DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY -/+ Work attitudes & behaviours Categorization-Elaboration Model (CEM) (van Knippenberg, De Dreu & Homan, 2004) - Task-related factors - Intergroup-bias and stereotypes - Diversity beliefs 4

5 The conceptual model Employees perceptions about the organization s age related treatment of different age groups. It measures the extent to which the individual feels that the organization offers a fair and respectful work environment for people of his/her age (Bohem, Kunze& Bruck, 2014) Age diversity climate Individual perceptions/ cognitions of the organizational context make age diversity salient Age Diversity Organiza0onal iden0fica0on General and specific climate GENERAL CLIMATE Employees perceptions of their work environment as a whole e.g. perceptions of the extent to which the work environment is generally supportive of their wellbeing (Carr et al. 2003; Patterson et al., 2005) SPECIFIC CLIMATE Refers to narrower aspects of the work environment Climate for innovation (Abbey and Dickson, 1983) Service climate (Schneider, Salvaggio, and Subirats, 2002) Safety climate (Zohar, 2000) Diversity climate (McKay, Avery and Morris, 2009) 5

6 Age Diversity Climate (ADC) Individual level Psychlogical ADC Age Diversity Climate Profili, Sammarra & Innocenti, 2017 Antecedent of Affective Commitment-OCB link Organizational level Organizational/aggregate ADC Bohem, Kunze & Bruck, 2014 Mediator of HR practices-firm performance link Age diversity: conceptualization & measurement (Chattopadhyay et al., 2004; Tsui, Egan, and O Reilly, 1992; Tsui and Gutek, 1999) Objective measure (in terms of chronological age rather than subjective age) Diversity affects individual work-related outcomes as a function of people s relative level of dissimilarity in a group/organization Dissimilarity is defined as the differences between a focal member and his/her co-workers with respect to age 6

7 Age diversity: conceptualization & measurement Example In a group of four people, with the following age distribution: 51 years old The employee of 31 is the most dissimilar in the group in terms of age and he/she is more likely to be affected by age diversity The context of the study: Why secondary schools AGE DISTRIBUTION IN ITALY 39,22% 11,12% 1,06% 48,61% FEW EXTRINSIC MOTIVATORS lowering status & social prestige inadequate resources limited career opportunities salaries only depend upon tenure (OECD, 2014) Less than

8 Research Design Data collection: Survey conducted in 5 secondary schools located in central Italy (urban and suburban schools; public and private institutions) 179 teachers as respondents Structured questionnaire distributed by research assistants Measures: Validated multi-item scale, ranking from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree) Unidimensionality check using confirmatory factor analysis Internal consistency check, using Cronbach s α coefficient Analysis: Hierarchical regression analysis Measures Age Diversity Climate: 5-item scale based on McKay et al. (2009) and adapted to the school context. This school respects the view of people of my age, I trust the organisation to treat fairly people of my age This school maintains a friendly work environment for people of my age Workgroup has climate that values the perspective of people of my age In my experience, leaders in this school demonstrate a visible commitment to age diversity Organizational identification: 6-items from the Mael and Ashfort s scale (1992). Example items are: When someone criticizes my school, it feels like a personal insult, When I talk about this school, I usually say we rather than they Age Dissimilarity: Age Dissimilarity Index (O'Reilly, Caldwell, & Barnett, 1989; Tsui and O'Reilly, 1989) computed as the difference between an individual s age and the ages of all other individuals in his/her school. It was calculated as: 8

9 The research model Age Dissimilarity Age Tenure Gender Contractual posi0on School size School typology Age diversity climate Organiza0onal iden0fica0on Sample description Gender distribution Men 41% Age distribution More than 50 39% Less than 35 12% Women 59% % Mean age = 48 years old Mean tenure in the school = 9 years Mean professional tenure = 17 years 9

10 Descriptive statistics Hierarchical regression analysis results 10

11 Interaction Plot Contributions Theoretical implications ü It sheds light on the effect of age dissimilarity, while existing studies have focused on race and gender dissimilarity ü Age diversity climate is focused on a single diversity dimension enhancing the validity of the measure and the quality of predictions because perceptions of inclusiveness of members might also vary by diversity category Managerial implications ü It shows that age dissimilarity can have a negative influence on organizational identification and, in turn, become detrimental for organizational performance. To avoid this negative effect organizations need to create a climate where employees are treated fairly regardless of their age 11

12 Next steps Sample enlargement ü 584 observations ü 21 schools Research model development ü Multilevel analysis ü Independent variables: age dissimilarity + gender dissimilarity ü Moderators: age diversity climate + gender diversity climate Thank you! 12