How Age Diversity Can Help Organizations Perform Better

What is it about?

Adopting an intellectual capital perspective, this paper examined how age diversity impacts an organization's performance by shaping its human and social capital. Human capital comprises the knowledge, skills and abilities of employees, while social capital refers to the knowledge gained though their social connections. The researchers found that younger and older employees contribute to human and social capital in complementary ways, allowing their organization to benefit from a broader range of knowledge, skills, abilities and social connections. They also found that organizations with functional diversity and age-inclusive management are better suited to capitalize on age-diverse workforces.

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We know very little about whether age diversity can actually bring value to the workplace and what the value-creating mechanisms would be. That's the main goal of the study — to take the first step toward understanding the potential value-creating mechanisms of age diversity and whether organizations can actually manage age diversity to benefit their performance.