Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in understanding generational dynamics in contemporary organizations (Parry and Urwin, 2011). This interest seems to reflect a growing realization of the impact that changes in organizations and society-at-large have on the employment relationship and the experience of the individual employee of the relationship with the employer. A number of dramatic social, economic and political shifts have taken place over the last decades that have created a new work reality. For instance, life expectancy in most societies has increased, and the aging of a demographically large “Baby Boom” generation is placing a strain on social security and pension plans (Dencker et al., 2008). Moreover, globalization and technological advances have forced organizations to become more competitive (Kalleberg, 2009). Organizations’ attempts to achieve increased competitiveness have led to a range of corporate restructuring efforts, which in turn have led to a growth in less secure employment contracts and transformations in the nature of the employment relationship (Osterman, 1999). This had, and continues to have, far-reaching effects on all of society. New generational cohorts, having grown up in a different societal reality, are likely to expect and experience different employment relationships from those that grew up in earlier decades in a setting where full-time employment and lifelong tenure with one organization was the standard (Anderson and Schalk, 1998).