Purpose – Popular literature argues that successive generations are experiencing more job changes and changes of employer. The “new careers” literature also proposes that career mobility patterns are becoming more diverse as people engage in more downward and lateral job changes and...

Purpose – The article's aim is to introduce the papers contained in this special issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology . Design/methodology/approach – Specifically the present article starts by discussing the meaning of the factor age and by considering who is actually termed an...

Purpose – Little is known about the motivation for older workers to work and to remain active in the labor market. Research on age and motivation is limited and, moreover, conceptually diverse. This paper aims to address age‐related factors that influence the work motivation of older...

Purpose – This study aims to test a model of the relationships among older workers' propensity to engage in development activities (development orientation), their perceptions of the development opportunities associated with their job (job development climate), their commitment to their...

Purpose – The purspose of this study is to examine the interplay between job resources (job control and support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors), age and creativity at work. Job control and support for creativity are assumed to benefit idea creativity and to moderate the...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is two‐fold. The first is to relate the negative image of older workers to stereotype threat and to propose that effective retention management should start by replacing this negative image. The second is to assess the needs, perceptions and preferences of...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between age and adaptation to changes in the workplace (perceived demand‐ability fit, task performance before and after change). It also seeks to explore two mediators of the potential age‐adaptation relationships: adaptive...

Purpose – This paper aims to identify longitudinal associations between job demands, job resources and experience of meaning at work. Design/methodolgy/approach – Using data from a longitudinal survey study among 6,299 employees in Danish eldercare who were divided into 301 work‐groups,...

Purpose – The paper aims to establish the position that discrete work tasks, rather than entire jobs, are the most useful level of analysis of age differences in work motivation. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 189 workers (aged 18‐65 years) from production and office jobs in the...

Purpose – In the context of demographic and economic changes, helping mature age job seekers find employment is imperative. The purpose of this paper is to examine mature age job seekers’ proactive personality as a moderator of the relationship between age and job search intensity; and to...