Age diversity and innovation: Do mixed teams of old and experienced and young and restless employees foster companies innovativeness?

Andrea Hammermann, Matthias Niendorf and Jörg Schmidt
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Andrea Hammermann: Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln
Matthias Niendorf: Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln
Jörg Schmidt: Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln

No 201904, IAB-Discussion Paper from Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]

Abstract: "In Germany, the labour force is ageing rapidly. At the same time, age heterogeneity within companies is rising. The literature on diversity argues that heterogeneity can have a positive as well as a detrimental effect on team outputs. Our paper sheds light on the impact of age diversity on the likelihood of a company to create product or process innovations. Based on our analysis of the Linked Employer-Employee-Data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) over the 2009-2013 period, we focus on different indicators of age diversity within a company's workforce (variety, separation and disparity). We find that a rise in the average age of a company's workforce has a negative impact on innovation, but age diversity measured by the standard deviation of age or the average age gap increases the probability of a company to create innovations. In addition, the uniformity of the age distribution does not affect innovativeness. Different results for age and tenure diversity suggest a higher importance of generalised human capital for creativity processes compared to company-specific knowledge gained during employment within a company." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Keywords: Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Auswirkungen; Heterogenität; Beschäftigtenstruktur; Humankapital; IAB-Linked-Employer-Employee-Datensatz; Innovationsfähigkeit; Altersstruktur; Produktinnovation; Prozessinnovation; Teamarbeit; 2009-2013 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J14 J24 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201904

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