Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior

Purpose – The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. To improve our understanding of how age affects individuals’ work-related attitudes and behaviors, we take a lifespan perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Design/methodology/approach –We collected responses from 270 employees of multinational firms operating in India and conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the hypotheses. Findings – We found that age profiles are a significant predictor 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 – Our findings provide empirical evidence of the lifespan perspective in organizational contexts, suggesting that age profiles influence work engagement. This is pertinent for organizations offering employees development opportunities to enhance work engagement.

The version of record is available at https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-02-2020-0095. The full citation is as follows: [Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior. Personnel Review 51, 1 p194-209 (2022)]. 'This author accepted manuscript is deposited under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) licence. This means that anyone may distribute, adapt, and build upon the work for non-commercial purposes, subject to full attribution. If you wish to use this manuscript for commercial purposes, please contact permissions@emerald.com'

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Work Title Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Liwen Zhang
  2. Elaine Farndale
Keyword
  1. Age profiles
  2. Job resources
  3. Work engagement
  4. Organizational citizenship behavior
License CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Personnel Review
Publication Date January 19, 2021
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-02-2020-0095
Deposited September 12, 2023

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Version 1
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  • Created
  • Added Author_accepted_PersRev_Liwen.pdf
  • Added Creator Liwen Zhang
  • Added Creator Elaine Farndale
  • Published
  • Updated Work Title, Keyword, Description, and 1 more Show Changes
    Work Title
    • Workforce age profile effects on job resources and work outcomes
    • Workforce age profile effects on job resources, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior
    Keyword
    • Age profiles, Job resources, Work engagement, Organizational citizenship behavior
    Description
    • The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. To improve our understanding of how age affects individuals’ work-related attitudes and behaviors, we take a lifespan perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).
    • Purpose – The issue of age in organizations has become increasingly salient given expanding age profiles, from millennials to baby boomers. To improve our understanding of how age affects individuals’ work-related attitudes and behaviors, we take a lifespan perspective to investigate how age profiles moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Design/methodology/approach –We collected responses from 270 employees of multinational firms operating in India and conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the hypotheses. Findings – We found that age profiles are a significant predictor 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 – Our findings provide empirical evidence of the lifespan perspective in organizational contexts, suggesting that age profiles influence work engagement. This is pertinent for organizations offering employees development opportunities to enhance work engagement.
    Publication Date
    • 2022-01-01
    • 2021-01-19
  • Updated