Following a direct call by Posthuma and Campion (2009), the main aim of this study was to generate evidence on the relationship between employees’ age and their RTC.
This relationship is often assumed to be positive due to common stereotypes existing in the workplace (e.g. Chiu et al., 2001; Van Dalen et al., 2009; Weiss and Maurer, 2004).
On the other hand, various concepts including the SOC model speak to the negative relationship between age and RTC, which is why we decided to pose two opposing hypotheses for the relationship. Second, we sought to contribute to the age/job performance literature (McEvoy and Cascio, 1989; Ng and Feldman, 2008) by introducing RTC as a potential mediator in the age/job performance relationship.
As to the competing H1a and H1b, we observed a negative linkage between age and individual RTC, implying that – overall – younger employees in our sample were more resistant to change than their older colleagues, rejecting the common stereotype.
However, it should be noted that the negative association between age and RTC observed is relatively small. Nevertheless, the negative relation between age and RTC remained stable in a randomly drawn 50 percent subsample as well, thereby at least enabling us to challenge the common stereotype that presumes older workers are less able to cope with changing environments.
Explanations for this rather counterintuitive finding might primarily be taken from the arguments provided in the theory section of the paper. First and foremost, the SOC model provides a framework explaining why older employees might have better strategies to cope with organizational change. The intensified use of SOC strategies might function as a moderator that might enable older employees to be better in differentiating between more and less central goals, and in finding ways to adapt to changing organizational environments by optimizing the deployment of their own resources. Consequently, older employees might not only score higher on certain job competencies (Abraham and Hansson, 1995), well-being, and career satisfaction (Wiese et al., 2002), but might also be more willing to adapt to change situations