Comment nuancer l'approche générationnelle des attitudes au travail ? Comparaison plurifactorielle et qualitative de deux générations de salariés d'une entreprise multinationale

This article introduces a comparative study of work attitudes between employees from two distinct generations. The unconditional reference to generation profiles arousing the authors' suspicion, they decide to point out the limits of the generation-focused researches and to use those considerations in order to turn them into a critical question. They study from a specific field, the Tokyo-based subsidiary of a multinational American group offering IT solutions, the various factors that may influence the generational characteristics. The working hypothesis set the attributes of the observed distribution unit against the most common generational problems (in other words, against attitudes that would characterized the younger generation), the least confirmed ones and also the least studied ones (such as influence of the hierarchical position, cultural influence, trajectories, activity or context switching). The survey is based on a mixed methodology, both quantitative and qualitative. Ten attitudes have been evaluated against a sample of forty-two employees that was composed of employees from the younger generation for one-third and staff from an older generation for two-thirds. The evaluation itself is based on unbiased indicators, with a measurement first taken at a specific milestone for all employees which allows a direct comparison and also through a continuous measurement over 4 years in order to follow the stability of the attitudes. The quantitative analysis allows the authors to confirm the impact of the generation (X and Y), the culture (Japanese or foreigner) and the hierarchical position (manager or technician) on the attitudes. Then the long-lasting observation enables to verify the change of attitudes triggered by external factors, trajectories, position change or company specificities ; parameters that quantitative studies do not integrate. Thus, not only this specific case study brings a contrasted perspective on the differences of attitudes between two generations (not all attitudes are stabilized within a same generation) but also a more dynamic view.