thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in Work Teams: A Multilevel Social Network Perspective
Moreover, social category diversity, such as age or gender diversity, in teams has been
shown to lead to higher satisfaction with, intent to remain in, and stronger commitment to the
team (Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999). Accordingly, it can be argued that age diversity
creates, possibly because it decreases intragroup competition, a climate in which team
members are more satisfied and more committed to the work group. Thus, team members will
have a personal interest in a good overall team performance and will be more willing to
transfer their own knowledge to other members of the team. Therefore, we can assume that
age diversity not only enables more intergenerational knowledge transfer, but also increases
knowledge transfer within the team directly. Thus, we predict:
HYPOTHESIS 1c: Age diversity within the team is positively related to knowledge transfer
from source to recipient.
3.3.4. Experience as a conveying factor
All of these three factors, be it age difference, individual age, or age diversity, influence
knowledge transfer because they go along with some other changes or circumstances, for
example, a larger difference in experience between individual employees, a more favorable
climate in the team, or a higher amount of OCB and experience in individuals. Therefore, in
addition to the underlying effects of age, we want to investigate the effect of one of the
proposed age-related changes, namely the effect of accumulated experience and knowledge.
This factor especially lends itself to the analysis within the present framework as, like age, it
can be employed in the form of a difference score for dyads as well as an individual
characteristic, i.e., as the difference in experience and knowledge between source and
recipient as well as the source’s experience and knowledge. As a proxy for experience and
accumulated job relevant knowledge, team tenure seems most appropriate. Team tenure refers
to the length of time an individual has been with the team (Schippers, den Hartog, Koopman,
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