Positive Effects of Ageing and Age-Diversity in Innovative Companies - Large Scale Evidence on Company Productivity

Uschi Backes-Gellner and Stephan Veen

No 93, Economics of Education Working Paper Series from University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Abstract: This paper investigates how age diversity within a company's workforce affects company productivity. It introduces a theoretical framework that helps to integrate results from a broad disciplinary spectrum of ageing and diversity research to derive empirically testable hypotheses on the effects of age diversity on company productivity. It argues that first the balance between costs and benefits of diversity determines the effect of age diversity on company productivity and that second the type of task performed acts as a moderator. To test these hypotheses, it uses a large-scale employer-employee panel data set (the LIAB.) Results show that increasing age diversity has a positive effect on company productivity if and only if a company engages in creative rather than routine tasks.

Keywords: Age Diversity; Company Performance; Productivity in Innovative Industries; Aging Societies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cwa, nep-dem, nep-eff, nep-hrm and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:educat:0093

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