Ageing in Organizations

The project “Ageing in Organizations: Empirical Analyses of the Demographic Transition in Firms” will investigate demographic challenges from the perspective of firms, their employees and managers.

Sinergia Project (SY)
Issues related to both management and economics are crucially important to the Sinergia Project (SY). The project addresses six interrelated questions covering the design of firm policies in light of an ageing workforce and the impact of such policies on firm performance and individual workers' decisions. It builds on other projects of SCALA. 

Investigations
In particular, we intend to provide answers to the following questions:

• How does age in conjunction with other demographic factors affect top management teams (TMT)?
• How do the resulting TMT configurations influence team processes and team- and firm-level outcomes?
• How do employees of different ages work together in teams?
• What effects do different managerial strategies have on the employment of elderly workers?
• How do firms preserve and exploit the resources and know­ledge that retiring top managers have accumulated as they enter the post-executive labour market?
• What role do firms play in designing their pension systems, and what are the resulting incentives for elderly employees to continue or quit working?
• To what extent do firm employment policies today take into account the future structural changes in the labour force
• What is the effect of these policies on the firms’ success and on the employment of elderly workers?
  

Analysis and results
While it is possible to conceptualize theories addressing these questions, the answers must be confirmed and their relevance quantified in empirical work. In this project, the expertise and experience of members specializing in microeconometric methods and their application to labour economics and public policy will be utilized in the analysis of individual level data collected by the management researchers.

In the proposed projects causal links will be established between policies, both public and private, and labour market outcomes, with the use of appropriate econometric techniques such as instrumental variables and so-called matching estimators. The results are interesting for both policy makers and managers alike. For policy makers they indicate whether the policies are (not) desirable for the economy. For managers they indicate whether a policy is more effective in recruiting or retaining elderly workers (in light of future labour supply shortages) and how this relates to company processes and performance.

Projects

• Characteristics and Dynamics of the Post-Executive Labour Market
• The Role of Age in Team Configuration, Team Processes, and Performance in Top Management Team 
• Generational Leadership - Effectively Leading Individuals of Different Generations and Generationally Diverse Teams
• Health Management and Flexible Work and Retirement Programs in the Demographic Change - Individual and Company Perspective
• The Effect of Firm Policies on Firm and Labour Market Attachment of Elderly Workers
• Occupational Pension Plans and the Adequacy of Retirement Income