Aging & Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

For the first time in history, five generations must work together, leading to an important intergenerational cohabitation that can exacerbate stereotypes and prejudices and lead to intergenerational conflicts which can decrease inclusion, healthy participation, productivity, and wellbeing of older workers. Intergenerational cooperation at work (ICW) as been shown to be an interesting avenue to reduce intergenerational conflicts, but no operational definition as been provided to facilitate the implementation of this concept in workplaces. This study provides a definition of the concept of ICW, which makes its operating variables (i.e., attributes, antecedents, consequences) explicit. We conducted a concept analysis based on Walker and Avant’s method (2019), using a systematic five-step procedure, including identification of the research question, selection of relevant manuscripts, study of the selection, extraction and classification of data, and analysis of data. Forty-eight manuscripts were selected, enabling us to identify eight attributes characterizing ICW (e.g., intergenerational teams, commitment of people towards a common goal, intergenerational knowledge sharing, intergenerational social cohesion, intergenerational management), seven antecedents (e.g., motivation, social and emotional competences, generational diversity promotion, accurate knowledge of generational characteristics, training offers) and six consequences of the concept (e.g., individual development, well-being improvement at work, intergenerational conflicts reduction, staff attraction and retention). On a theoretical level, this study clarifies the use of ICW in the literature. On a practical level, this knowledge could help stakeholders using ICW to optimize older workers’ wellbeing at work by reducing intergenerational conflicts, thus helping their retention in workplaces.