Younger supervisors, older subordinates: An organizational‐level study of age differences, emotions, and performance

• Published date: 01 May 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2129
• Date: 01 May 2017

Younger supervisors, older subordinates: An

organizational-level study of age differences,

emotions, and performance

FLORIAN KUNZE

1

*

,†

AND JOCHEN I. MENGES

2†

1

University of Konstanz, Chair for Organisational Studies, Konstanz, Germany

2

WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Chair of Leadership and HRM, Düsseldorf, Germany

Summary Younger employees are often promoted into supervisory positions in which they then manage older subor-

dinates. Do companies benefit or suffer when supervisors and subordinates have inverse age differences? In

this study, we examine how average age differences between younger supervisors and older subordinates are

linked to the emotions that prevail in the workforce, and to company performance. We propose that the av-

erage age differences determine how frequently older subordinates and their coworkers experience negative

emotions, and that these emotion frequency levels in turn relate to company performance. The indirect re-

lationship between age differences and performance occurs only if subordinates express their feelings to-

ward their supervisor, but the association is neutralized if emotions are suppressed. We find consistent

evidence for this theoretical model in a study of 61 companies with multiple respondents. Copyright ©

2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: age norms; age diversity; relational demography; demographic change; emotions; company

performance

Older employees have historically supervised younger employees (Linton 1936), but this customary pattern has

changed in recent decades as a result of multiple trends (Cappeli & Novelli 2010). To increase performance, many

companies have abandoned seniority-based promotion systems and have introduced merit-based systems that en-

courage ambitious young employees to compete with, and overtake, their older colleagues on the corporate career

ladder (Chiang & Birtch 2007). The fast pace of technological innovation has prompted companies to appreciate

the fresh and creative ideas of younger employees and consequently to promote them into supervisory positions

(Posthuma & Campion 2009). The move toward promoting younger employees into positions that require them

to manage older employees is also a consequence of the demographic change (Peeters & Groot 2012) that forces

companies to retain older employees in the workplace longer than ever before, for example, through the abandoning

of early retirement schemes. The ever-greater number of aging employees with flat or even downward-sloping career

patterns after a certain age (e.g., 50 years) means that the likelihood of their having younger supervisors increases.

Together, these trends contribute to the emergence of a “new organizational order”(Cappeli & Novelli 2010)—one

in which younger employees increasingly supervise older employees.

The neglect of age in promotion decisions has been heralded as being inherently positive—it supposedly prevents

the negative feelings that age-based discrimination had created in the traditional workplace (Kunze, Boehm, &

Bruch 2011), and it motivates, through the emphasis on merit rather than seniority, high levels of company perfor-

mance (Cadsby, Song, & Tapon 2007; Dobson 1988; Lazear 2000). Most companies in industrialized countries now

adhere to policies that consider age as irrelevant for promotion decisions (Castilla 2008). However, empirical evi-

dence demonstrating the alleged benefits of these policies is mixed (Phelan & Lin 2001). Indeed, there is a puzzle

*Correspondence to: Florian Kunze, Chair for Organisational Studies, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstr. 10, D 78457 Konstanz, Germany.

E-mail: florian.kunze@uni-konstanz.de

†

Both authors have contributed equally to this study

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 01 April 2015

Revised 22 July 2016, Accepted 01 August 2016

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 461–486 (2017)

Published online 4 September 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2129

Research Article

at the heart of our understanding of these developments. Theories of career time tables (Lawrence 1984, 1988) and

age-related status differences (Hughes 1945; Vecchio 1993) suggest that “employees who are older than their man-

agers will suffer negative consequences”(Shore, Cleveland, & Goldberg 2003, p. 533). Empirical studies show that

these consequences involve feeling negative emotions (Cox & Nkomo 1992) and experiencing lower levels of per-

formance (cf. Shore et al. 2003). These studies give reason to suspect that systematically promoting younger em-

ployees into positions requiring them to supervise older employees may diminish rather than enhance the

collective feelings that prevail in a company and the company’s performance.

This study addresses the question of how workers feel and collectively perform when their company features su-

pervisory relationships pairing younger supervisors with older subordinates. We draw on extant theories about age

differences in organizations (e.g., Lawrence 1984, 1988; Hughes 1945; Vecchio 1993) to develop hypotheses about

age-related effects at the organizational level, and we test the hypotheses in an organizational-level survey study in-

volving 61 companies. We propose that the average age differences between younger supervisors and their older

subordinates within companies are linked to company performance. Age-inverse supervisory relationships, we sug-

gest, carry negative emotional repercussions that, if expressed, blanket companies with negative emotions and, in

turn, impair company performance.

To establish our theoretical model, we integrate relational and compositional demography theories (Tsui, Egan, &

Xin 1995), and we link those theories with emotion research at the organizational level (Menges & Kilduff 2015).

Prior research on age effects has drawn either on relational theories concerning age-different relationships as they

affect employees individually (e.g., Shore et al. 2003; Tsui & O’Reilly 1989), or on the compositional theories of

age diversity as it affects the workforce collectively (e.g., Kunze, de Jong and Bruch, 2016; Van Dijk, Van Engen,

& Van Knippenberg 2012). In this research, we examine how age-different relationships within companies affect

workforce emotions and performance collectively, thus bridging the two theoretical approaches. We expand our un-

derstanding of age effects at the organizational level, a level that previous research on individuals, dyads, and teams

has largely neglected (Kunze et al. 2011), and we show that demographic differences link with performance through

psychological mechanisms involving emotion experience and expression (Barsade & Knight 2015; Elfenbein 2007;

Menges & Kilduff 2015). Thus, we contribute to a better understanding of how age differences in companies relate

to outcomes at the organizational level.

Why and when do age-inverse supervisory relationships matter?

The organizational-level model driving our research is depicted in Figure 1. We suggest that average age differences

between supervisors and older subordinates within companies indirectly relate to company performance: the larger

the age differences between supervisors and older subordinates, the more frequently employees will experience neg-

ative emotions¸ and, in turn, the lower company performance will be. We further suggest that the indirect linkage

depends on whether subordinates express emotions toward their supervisor. If they do, then the linkage unfolds

as depicted, but if they suppress their emotions and keep their feelings hidden, the linkage vanishes, rendering the

average age-inverse differences in supervisory relationships irrelevant for company performance. In the following

paragraphs, we elaborate on this model.

Age-inverse supervisory relationships and negative emotions of subordinates

Supervisor–subordinate relationships always involve an emotional component (Barsade & Gibson 2007) and usually

feature a mix of positiveand negative emotions (Dasborough2006). In age-inverse supervisory relationships we expect

this to be no different.But, in comparison to same-ageor older supervisor-youngersubordinate relationships,we expect

that there will be a higherfrequency of negative emotions includinganger, fear, and disgust in age-inverse supervisory

relationships. These negative emotions are triggered, we posit, by status incongruence and violations of careernorms.

462 F. KUNZE AND J. MENGES

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 461–486 (2017)

DOI: 10.1002/job