thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

the demographic change. Accordingly, age acted as an independent variable in the first study,
as the key predictor (at different levels) in the second paper, and was controlled for in paper
three, where the focus was a slightly different one. In paper one and two, similar results were
found such that there were age effects on knowledge transfer, but that these effects were
rather small. A difference between results between the two papers appeared with respect to
the persistence of age effects when proxies for experience were introduced: In the first study,
age effects persisted when job experience was controlled for, in paper two, they disappeared
when team tenure was entered in the model. In the third paper, however, where age was used
as a control at the individual level, no effects were found. Thus, although we can conclude
that age effects do seem to exist, at least at certain levels, the question might arise if it really
makes sense to study age effects on knowledge transfer, given that the effects I found were
small and might simply be grounded in differences in experience. My answer would still be:
Yes! The reason why I chose to study age was not because it seemed the best explanatory
variable, but because the age structure of the workforce is changing, and we therefore need to
know how this will affect knowledge transfer. Thus, we have to look for age effects, knowing
that what we are examining might actually be a conglomerate of different age-related effects,
as portrayed in chapter three.
Second, a prevalent predictor in this dissertational work was intrinsic motivation. This
construct was introduced due to one of the research aims being to find major predictors of
knowledge transfer. Intrinsic motivation appeared to be a good candidate as the long tradition
of psychological research had shown it to be linked to behaviors in all kinds of domains,
among them school, sports, and work (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Gagné & Deci, 2005; Hackman &
Oldham, 1980). Furthermore, there had been some theoretical (Gagné, 2009; Osterloh & Frey,
2000) as well as empirical work (Cross & Sproull, 2004; Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000;
Kankanhalli, Tan, & Wie, 2005; Lin, 2007; Wasko & Faraj, 2000) relating intrinsic
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