Ageing and innovation

Stefanie Ruel

Chapter 37 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Innovation Management, 2025, pp 142-145 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Beyond concerns for ‘older’ individuals as users of innovation, a focus on age, ageing and innovation within the field of management and organisation studies (MOS) creates avenues of inquiry on how ‘older’ workers or entrepreneurs can contribute to innovative products and processes. To date, much of Western-based knowledge (re)produces grand narratives which essentialise and universalise the ‘older’ worker/entrepreneur into a stereotype that positions these individuals as incapable of being innovative or contributing to innovative processes. Similarly, ‘older’ workers are often compared to ‘younger’ workers, (re)creating an age-dependent individual as the norm against which innovation possibilities are measured. This entry considers what we know about age and ageing in organisations as these concepts and contexts relate to innovation as work/entrepreneurship responsibilities. In the process, this entry brings chronological, time-dependent assumptions to the reader's attention, inviting them to deconstruct such notions while opening avenues of inquiry within MOS.

Keywords: Age and ageing; Discourses; Entrepreneurs; Human Resource Management; Materially discursive; Discriminatory practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035306442
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035306459.00046 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22049_37

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().