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Using Lifespan Developmental Theory and Methods as a Viable Alternative to the Study of Generational Differences at Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

Hannes Zacher
Hannes Zacher*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Groningen
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hannes Zacher, Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712TS Groningen, the Netherlands. E-mail: h.zacher@rug.nl
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Extract

I agree with Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) that it is futile to further invest in the study of generational differences in the work context due to a lack of appropriate theory and methods. The key problem with the generations concept is that splitting continuous variables such as age or time into a few discrete units involves arbitrary cutoffs and atheoretical groupings of individuals (e.g., stating that all people born between the early 1960s and early 1980s belong to Generation X). As noted by methodologists, this procedure leads to a loss of information about individuals and reduced statistical power (MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002). Due to these conceptual and methodological limitations, I regard it as very difficult if not impossible to develop a “comprehensive theory of generations” (Costanza & Finkelstein, p. 20) and to rigorously examine generational differences at work in empirical studies.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 342 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

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