IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jmerit/v3y2023i4p38-653d1267506.html

Ageing Organizations: Reviewing the Literature and Making a Few Recommendations for Human Resource Management

Author

Listed:
  • Alfredo Salomão Filho

    (Institut für Lern-Innovation, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany)

  • Tanja Tillmanns

    (Institut für Lern-Innovation, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany)

  • Trudy Corrigan

    (School of Policy & Practice, Dublin City University, D09 YT18 Dublin, Ireland)

Abstract

In an ageing society, organizations must consider the inclusion and effective management of older professionals if they wish to remain competitive. Besides having harmful and far-reaching effects on people’s health, age discrimination in the workplace leads to absenteeism, lower levels of productivity, and early retirement. Within such a context, this problematic organizational feature of most Western, now ageing, organizations and labour markets starts gaining more relevance. However, to date there has been little discussion, research, or policy development to ensure that older employees’ skills and capabilities are optimally put to use by organizations without the occurrence of ageism. We present the results of a systematic literature review based on 30 studies in the context of ageing organizations to make recommendations for human resource management. We suggest an approach to effectively manage intergenerational organizations, reducing the occurrence of age discrimination and its related consequences, as well as to achieve high employee engagement. Our review indicates that a strong ethics framework that is continuously followed, disseminated, and updated by management, together with a combination of efforts from all stakeholders, may accomplish the best results towards a culture that respects and values people of all ages at work, positively impacting on productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfredo Salomão Filho & Tanja Tillmanns & Trudy Corrigan, 2023. "Ageing Organizations: Reviewing the Literature and Making a Few Recommendations for Human Resource Management," Merits, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmerit:v:3:y:2023:i:4:p:38-653:d:1267506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8104/3/4/38/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8104/3/4/38/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erdman Palmore, 2015. "Ageism Comes of Age," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 70(6), pages 873-875.
    2. Miguel Delgado Helleseter & Peter Kuhn & Kailing Shen, 2020. "The Age Twist in Employers’ Gender Requests: Evidence from Four Job Boards," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(2), pages 428-469.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fijałkowska Justyna & Lanzalonga Federico, 2025. "Working Later in Life: How Research Frames the Challenges and Possibilities of Ageing at Work," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 17(2), pages 5-37.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liat Ayalon & Klaus Rothermund, 2018. "Examining the utility of national indicators of relative age disadvantage in Europe," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 189-197, June.
    2. Alison L. Chasteen & Sali A. Tagliamonte & Katharina Pabst & Samantha Brunet, 2022. "Ageist Communication Experienced by Middle-Aged and Older Canadians," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-7, February.
    3. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. David Card & Fabrizio Colella & Rafael Lalive, 2025. "Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(4), pages 2437-2471.
    5. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2019. "Age discrimination in hiring decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 173-183.
    6. Mane, Klint & Park, Geunyong & Shen, Ande, 2025. "High-tech clusters, labor demand, and inequality: Evidence from “Made in China 2025”," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    7. Carl Lin & Yan Sun & Chunbing Xing, 2021. "Son Preference and Human Capital Investment among China’s Rural-urban Migrant Households," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(12), pages 2077-2094, December.
    8. Benny, Liza & Bhalotra, Sonia & Fernández, Manuel, 2021. "Occupation flexibility and the graduate gender wage gap in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2021-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    9. Mirka Zvedelikova, 2022. "Preference for Young Workers in Mid-career Recruiting Using Online Ads for Sales Jobs: Evidence from Japan," ISER Discussion Paper 1193, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    10. repec:crm:wpaper:2511 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Daniel Holman & Alan Walker, 2021. "Understanding unequal ageing: towards a synthesis of intersectionality and life course analyses," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 239-255, June.
    12. Grasso, Giuseppe & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2023. "The Impact of Restricting Fixed-Term Contracts on Labor and Skill Demand," IZA Discussion Papers 16496, IZA Network @ LISER.
    13. Emily A. Beam & Joshua Hyman & Caroline Theoharides, 2020. "The Relative Returns to Education, Experience, and Attractiveness for Young Workers," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 391-428.
    14. Osman, Adam & Speer, Jamin D. & Weaver, Andrew, 2023. "Discrimination against Women in Hiring," IZA Discussion Papers 16598, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Loredana Ivan & Eugène Loos & George Tudorie, 2020. "Mitigating Visual Ageism in Digital Media: Designing for Dynamic Diversity to Enhance Communication Rights for Senior Citizens," Societies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-13, October.
    16. Peter Kuhn & Kailing Shen, 2023. "What Happens When Employers Can No Longer Discriminate in Job Ads?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(4), pages 1013-1048, April.
    17. R. Jason Faberman & Marianna Kudlyak, 2016. "What Does Online Job Search Tell Us about the Labor Market?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue 1, pages 1-15.
    18. Escamilla Guerrero, David & Lepistö, Miko & Minns, Chris, 2022. "Explaining gender differences in migrant sorting: evidence from Canada-US migration," Economic History Working Papers 117260, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    19. Gajowiak Małgorzata, 2024. "Ageism in the Workplace – Selected Research Results in SMEs from the Poznań Poviat," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 24(1), pages 41-55.
    20. Chaturvedi, Sugat & Mahajan, Kanika & Siddique, Zahra, 2025. "Gendered language in job ads and applicant behavior: Evidence from India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    21. Vanessa Burholt & Bethan Winter & Marja Aartsen & Costas Constantinou & Lena Dahlberg & Villar Feliciano & Jenny Jong Gierveld & Sofie Regenmortel & Charles Waldegrave, 2020. "A critical review and development of a conceptual model of exclusion from social relations for older people," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 3-19, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jmerit:v:3:y:2023:i:4:p:38-653:d:1267506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.