thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in Work Teams: A Multilevel Social Network Perspective
German public administration. Results from multilevel analysis show that age diversity within
the team and dyadic age difference have positive effects on knowledge transfer, while the
latter is conveyed by a difference in experience. Individual age did not show a significant
influence. Thus, there is intergenerational knowledge transfer in the form of more exchange
from older to younger employees, but older employees do not generally transfer more
knowledge.
3.2. Introduction
The developed countries are facing a demographic change that will affect the population as a
whole as well as the workforce. For example, the mean age of the US-American workforce
has been increasing over the last 30 years from 35 years in 1980 to 41 years in 2006 (Bureau
of Labor Statistics, 2006). Low birthrates and a rising life expectancy are reshaping the
population pyramids, leading to larger cohorts of older employees in organizations, with
fewer young workers entering the workforce, and extended work lives for older workers
(Leibold & Voelpel, 2006; Ng & Feldmann, 2008; Vaupel & Loichinger, 2006). By now, the
baby boomer generation, i.e., the large group of people born between 1946 and 1966, is
beginning to retire. As a result, large waves of employees will soon leave the organizations.
These employees, for whom it was characteristic to stay in the same company for most of
their working lives (e.g., D’Amato & Herzfeldt, 2008; Lancaster & Stillman, 2002), have
gathered a huge amount of experience and knowledge; knowledge that the organizations will
have much difficulty to replace when its owners have retired.
This poses a serious problem for organizations, because knowledge is considered one of
the main organizational assets: the widely accepted knowledge-based view of the firm (Grant,
1996, 1997; Spender, 1996) suggests that knowledge is a productive resource which yields
competitive advantage (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Argote & Ingram, 2000; Argote, Ingram,
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