Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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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

Research Seminar Presenter Prof. Dr. Alessia Sammarra University of Twente, HRM Department April 25th, 9.00 am (Room RA1315)

The demographic time bomb

Today, 4 young workers per senior (over age 65)

By 2060, 2 young workers per senior (over age 65)

RATIO OF YOUNG TO OLD

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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“We have no mandatory retirement age, Dave, but under under certain conditions we tend to encourage people to die”

Low employers’ awareness and proactivity

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 distance among employees at both extreme ends of the age continuum is growing, increasing age diversity

§  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

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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Research question

AGE DIVERSITY

ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION

•  Absenteism •  Turnover •  Commitment •  OCB

Age diversity: a double-edged sword

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

Work attitudes &

behaviours

-/+?

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?

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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Theoretical perspectives (1)

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

Work attitudes &

behaviours

The Information and Decision-making 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.

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

Theoretical perspectives (2)

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

Work attitudes &

behaviours

Social Identity Approach

(SIA)

The Information and Decision-making Perspective

(IDP)

Categorization-Elaboration Model (CEM) (van Knippenberg, De Dreu & Homan, 2004) -  Task-related factors -  Intergroup-bias and stereotypes -  Diversity beliefs

-/+

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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The conceptual model

Age    

Diversity  Organiza0onal  iden0fica0on  

Age diversity climate

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)

Individual perceptions/cognitions of the

organizational context make age diversity salient

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 well-being (Carr et al. 2003; Patterson et al., 2005)

GENERAL CLIMATE 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)

General and specific climate

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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Age Diversity Climate (ADC)

Antecedent of Affective

Commitment-OCB link

Mediator of HR practices-firm

performance link

Profili, Sammarra & Innocenti, 2017

Bohem, Kunze & Bruck, 2014

Age Diversity Climate

Individual level Psychlogical ADC

Organizational level Organizational/aggregate ADC

Age diversity: conceptualization & measurement

•  Diversity affects individual work-related outcomes as a function of people’s relative level of dissimilarity in a group/organization

(Chattopadhyay et al., 2004; Tsui, Egan, and O’Reilly, 1992; Tsui and Gutek, 1999)

•  Dissimilarity is defined as the differences between a focal member and his/her co-workers with respect to age

•  Objective measure (in terms of chronological age rather than subjective age)

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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Age diversity: conceptualization & measurement

Example

In a group of four people, with the following age distribution:

•  51 years old •  47 “ •  50 “ •  31 “

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

1,06%

48,61% 39,22%

11,12%

AGE DISTRIBUTION IN ITALY

•  lowering status & social prestige

•  inadequate resources •  limited career opportunities •  salaries only depend upon

tenure

FEW EXTRINSIC MOTIVATORS

Less than 30 30-49

50-59 60 +

(OECD, 2014)

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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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:

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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The research model

Age    Dissimilarity  

Age  

Tenure  

Gender  

Contractual  posi0on  

School  size  

School  typology  

 

Organiza0onal  iden0fica0on  

Age diversity climate

Sample description

Women 59%

Men 41%

Gender distribution Less than

35 12%

36-50 49%

More than 50

39%

Age distribution

•  Mean age = 48 years old

•  Mean tenure in the school = 9 years

•  Mean professional tenure = 17 years

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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Descriptive statistics

Hierarchical regression analysis results

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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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

Research  Seminar  Presenter  Prof.  Dr.  Alessia  Sammarra    

University  of  Twente,  HRM  Department  April  25th  2017  ,  9.00  am  (Room  RA1315)  

 

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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!