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Fire All the Boomers: How Generational Labeling Legitimizes Age Discrimination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

Cody B. Cox  and
Gary Coulton
Cody B. Cox*
Affiliation:
College of Arts and Sciences, Texas A&M University San Antonio
Gary Coulton
Affiliation:
College of Arts and Sciences, Texas A&M University San Antonio
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cody B. Cox, Texas A&M University San Antonio, One University Way, San Antonio, TX 78224. E-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) make a number of important observations in their exploration of how generation-based differences are understood by academics and practitioners. The absence of a unifying theory, the lack of a clear pattern of findings, and the conceptual ambiguity about generational membership have all limited the utility of generational membership to researchers, while the practice of describing large groups of individuals in generational terms has become enormously popular outside of academia. Certainly, there are several topics that are popular among the public and widely used by businesses despite being viewed negatively by academics; however, there is some danger in the widespread perception that group differences between individuals of different ages can be explained by generational membership. Although it might be tempting to consider these generational stereotypes as simply innocuous misperceptions supervisors may hold, they may, in fact, be quite harmful. The purpose of this article is to further expand on the potential for these stereotypes to be harmful for older and younger employees.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 372 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

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