Generation Diverse Talent Management Practices Main Determinants and its Influence on Firm Performance.pdf
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Generation Diverse Talent Management Practices:
Main Determinants and its Influence on Firm
Performance
Marina Latukha, Anna Kriklivetc & Felix Podgainyi
To cite this article: Marina Latukha, Anna Kriklivetc & Felix Podgainyi (2022)
Generation Diverse Talent Management Practices: Main Determinants and its
Influence on Firm Performance, Journal of East-West Business, 28:4, 291-322, DOI:
10.1080/10669868.2022.2074186
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Published online: 18 May 2022.
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2. Generation Diverse Talent Management Practices: Main
Determinants and its Influence on Firm Performance
Marina Latukhaa,b
, Anna Kriklivetcb
, and Felix Podgainyib
a
Graduate School of Management, Organizational behavior and HRM, Saint-Petersburg, Russian
Federation; b
Graduate School of Management, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg,
Russian Federation
ABSTRACT
Implementation of diverse talent management (TM) practices
allows enhancing diversity and inclusion and may influence
organizational outcomes. The paper investigates the relationship
between generation diverse TM practices and firm performance.
We use the data from 82 companies to reveal factors that shape
generation diverse TM practices. We claim that there is a posi-
tive link between those practices and firm performance. We also
find that the way of thinking and decision-making, the level of
responsibility, the reaction to changes and innovations, the skill-
set, and the level of ambition tend to vary among generations
and that these factors determine TM practices for generations.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 5 December 2021
Accepted 27 April 2022
KEYWORDS
Generations; diversity;
talent management; firm
performance
Introduction
Intensifying competition at global scene forces companies to employ people
who are capable to meet multiple tasks and influence organizational results
whereas diversity in employees’ characteristics becomes an important topic
in current business agenda (Alruwaili 2018). Due to recent socio-cultural
and economic trends such as globalization, increased life expectations, eth-
nic and gender differences of employees at the workplace, business society
is turning its attention to the management of different diversity dimensions
(Bernard, Anandan, and RaviKumar 2019). Taking these trends into con-
sideration, workforces will continue to become more heterogeneous (Mor
Barak and Travis 2013). The scientific definition of diversity refers to a
range of differences in nationality, age, gender, language, function, ability,
religion, etc. (Anita and Swamy 2018). Diversity at the workplace addition-
ally covers cultural and intellectual capabilities because such parameters but
not only ethnic or demographic diversity can be result in creativity that
empowers companies to show better performance (Roberson, Holmes IV,
and Perry 2017). Speaking especially about generational diversity in the
CONTACT Anna Kriklivetc annakriklivetc@yandex.ru Graduate School of Management, Organizational
behavior and HRM, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation.
ß 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS
2022, VOL. 28, NO. 4, 291–322
https://doi.org/10.1080/10669868.2022.2074186
3. workforce, it should be mentioned that this diversity could be consid-
ered as partly “natural”: today we are witnessing a global trend toward
an increase in the length of the working period (Polat, Bal, and Jansen
2017). On the one hand, the worsening economic situation in the world,
which makes people constantly work, and on the other hand, increased
life expectancy, which will result in a commensurate increase in retire-
ment age, all these external factors stimulate generational diversity in
the workforce.
Generational diversity presents an important facet for exploration for
modern business. With a constantly increasing complexity of labor market,
firms face such important massive worldwide trends as an increased life
expectancy from 48 to 74 years for men, and from 51 to almost 80 years for
women during the 20th century (National Center for Health Statistics
2004). Moreover, Generation Z has already started to be employed and
their impact on organizational results is likely to increase from year to
year, while currently, Baby Boomers, Generations X and Y form a major
part of the workforce (Kilber, Barclay, and Ohmer 2014). It means that the
consecution of four different generations, which are heavily tightened by
relations and communications at workplaces, is fundamentally changing.
Therefore, there are supposed to be more generations on the labor market
at the same time, than ever before. And the potential impact of generation
diversity on firm performance could be very significant and should be
taken into consideration in a more detailed way.
The age difference at the workplace is a constant characteristic for eco-
nomic activities of all times and there were also generational differentia-
tions in the past (Howe and Strauss 2000). However, studying generational
diversity at a workplace it is necessary to consider not only age-related dif-
ferences of the employees, but also specific generations and their features
which make impact on workplaces. In other words, it is necessary to
answer how generations may be involved in value creation process and
what managerial practices contribute to this agenda.
Many companies are now seeking for improving their diversity as well as
practices to manage and leverage diversity in order to have better perform-
ance results. The winning position is occupied by companies who are car-
ing about diversity issues in order to create conditions that would reveal
and develop their talented people (Thunnissen 2016). As diverse and inclu-
sive workforce remains a valuable resource for many organizations during
last decades, TM specialists were focusing on recruitment and retention of
employees balancing them by gender, race, ethnicity, and other diversity
dimensions. There is an increasing demand in the workforce today to add
multigenerational diversity to this mix as it may have a positive effect on
292 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
4. company performance due to the combination of talents and strengths of
each generation (Bursch and Kelly 2014).
From the existing literature we can find that TM specialists are now
mostly focused on the discussion of ethnic and gender differences (Sen and
Mukherjee 2019; del Carmen Triana, Richard, Su 2019; Song, Yoon, and
Kang 2020) as primary diversity dimensions, leaving, for example, genera-
tions as an unexplored research direction. Some studies analyze the rela-
tionship between generational diversity presence and firm performance
(Clark 2017; Wegge and Meyer 2020; Kamruzzaman 2020), but there is still
a room for discussion of how attraction, development, and retention of tal-
ented employees from different generations may shape firm performance.
This study is motivated by the argument that people (human capital) are
important to organizations, and they affect firm performance and survival
(Huggins, Prokop, and Thompson 2017; Petroulas, Brown, and Sundin
2010). Therefore, one of the most important issues is to create a comfort-
able environment and communication channels for employees or team
members of different generations. Previous studies concerning generation
diversity impact on firm performance have considered different generations
as research samples. Some of the articles cover human resource and TM
practices regarding three generations – Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y
(Fenzel 2013; Kilber, Barclay, and Ohmer 2014), others also consider
Traditionalists generation born at 1922–1943 years (Crampton and Hodge
2007; Parry and Urwin 2009). Besides, there is a set of articles about TM
practices’ features and specialties of Generation Z, which has already
started to be employed and increase its influence on human resource and
TM practices from year to year (Dimock 2019; Dwivedula, Singh, and
Azaran 2019; Schroth 2019). We see that we are still limited by analysis of
four generations (Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y and Z) which represen-
tatives form almost 100% of the corporate workforce nowadays. This fact
opens the field for massive further research, which should be aimed to the
actualization of studies about generational diversity and its implementation
in TM.
The paper is structured as follows. First, we draw upon a literature
review, which sets up the debates about generation diverse TM practices
and its research agenda. We provide a theoretical background for this
research by integrating our research field into theory of generations (Howe
and Strauss 2000). Third, we explain the empirical methodology, which we
follow to answer our research questions. Fourth, we summarize our main
findings, show the contribution of the present research, and point out the
limitations of this study. Fifth, we outline possible future research direc-
tions based on the evidence that we get during conducting this research.
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 293
5. Theoretical background
Diversity in the workplace
In management research, diversity refers to an organizational composition
of labor units in the context of demographical and cultural characteristics
that can be considered as distinctive and symbolically meaningful ones for
group members’ relationships at the workplace (DiTomaso and Parks-
Yancy 2014). So that, diversity management is considered as a systematic
and planned commitment on an organizational structure to hire and retain
employees with diverse backgrounds and abilities (Bassett-Jones 2005).
These activities are mainly functioning in training and development HRM
practices. Diversity management can be defined as an aggregate effect of
HRM sub-systems, which includes recruitment, development, performance
evaluation, reward system, and individual managerial behavior in terms of
delivering competitive advantage through leadership and teamwork of peo-
ple with different backgrounds and personal characteristics (Cho, Kim, and
Mor Barak 2017).
While there is a kind of consensus among researchers in gender and age
diversity consideration, there is a debate around generations as a diversity
dimension. According to Rudolph, Toomey, and Baltes (2017), age bias
appears because the information about how to manage generational diverse
workforce is not widely distributed among recruiters. Also, there is an
opinion that most organizations perceive generational diversity as inevitable
fact and do not see the necessity to intentionally manage it (Rudolph,
Toomey, and Baltes 2017).
As opposed to the point of the absence of necessity to even consider gen-
erational diversity, Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch (2014) stated an organization-
wide age-diversity climate as one of the main factors for effective joint
work of different age groups. The authors conclude that age inclusive HRM
practices positively affect an organization development. As for certain
HRM practices which could be useful to maintain effectiveness in the
workplace with age-diverse employees, they highlighted recruitment process
which eliminates age bias by default, equal access to education and devel-
opment for all generations, and age-inclusive corporate culture (Bohm,
Kunze, and Bruch 2014). In other words, specific generation diverse man-
agement practices are considered as important to be developed and
implemented.
The idea that a company’s organizational structure and benefits for
employees should be equally attractive for all age groups was firstly devel-
oped by Smith (2008). The author puts forward a hypothesis that the dif-
ference in a way of choosing job for people from generations is reasoned
by the fact that they have different values and prioritize the importance of
294 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
6. certain working conditions and benefits differently, but in fact they are
looking for similar working conditions and benefits. To summarize Smith’s
approach, six candidate’s values are important for any generation, but they
could be put in a different order: to be respected by the company and col-
leagues, to be recognized for accomplishments (both monetarily and non-
monetarily), to be remembered, to be coached, and to be consulted on
actions that may affect working conditions (Smith 2008). Thus, professio-
nals responsible for the formation and management of a company’s work-
force should consider the differences, while focusing on the similarities of
four generations, when they create a strategy of attraction, development,
and retention of employees from different generations (Bursch Kelly 2014).
Moreover, there is research evidence that generational diversity at a work-
place is an efficient practice especially in terms of communication issues
both with clients and inside the team. The presence of different generations
in company’s workforce can enhance teamwork and improve patient care
in healthcare organizations (Clark 2017). Besides, it also positively impacts
the hospitality industry where human dependency and employee sensitivity
are pivotal to operational success (Kamruzzaman 2020). Generational diver-
sity may improve client services by enhancing the managers’ understanding
of consumer needs in a more enriching and detailed way by segmenting
them not only by usual characteristics, but also by dividing them into gen-
erational cohorts. Moreover, inclusive HRM practices, such as employment
of individuals from different generations, positively affect SMEs’ perform-
ance as well as employees’ collective turnover intentions (Bohm, Kunze,
and Bruch 2014).
Generations as research destination
Here we would like to provide a brief introduction to the theory of genera-
tions, which serves as a basis for our research. To dive deeper into its main
theoretical assumptions, we first need to specify the definition of generation
itself. Broadly speaking, generation is a cohort of people, who were born
within a certain time interval (Parry and Urwin 2009). Further, it is also
recognized as an identifiable group of people, who share close birth dates
as well as significant life events that occurred in key stages of their lives
(Howe and Strauss 2000; Kupperschmidt 2000; Raines 2003). This aspect of
the mutual experience among people is of crucial importance as it namely
distinguishes the division by generational cohorts and simple age-grouping.
Howe and Strauss (2000) defined generation as population of all people
who were born in a 20-year period or who share certain life phase: child-
hood, youth, middle age, and old age. The researchers propose three crite-
ria for a generation identification: (1) People who share the same historical
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 295
7. era: individuals of one generation face with the same key historical events
and social trends, being in the same phases of life (Howe and Strauss 2000;
Raines 2003); (2) People, who share certain common beliefs and behaviors
(Campbell et al. 2015; Bennett, Pitt, and Price 2012); (3) People, who share
a sense of belonging to a certain generation, who know about the experi-
ence and characteristics that they share with their same-age peers (Howe
and Strauss 2000; Raines 2003; Brazhnikov 2016).
Overall, the common cultural experience is to a considerable extent dic-
tated by the time frame in which individuals were born (Campbell et al.
2015) and, thus, it determines distinctive characteristics of each generation
(Lancaster and Stillman 2002), which could appear to be important to con-
sider when developing TM practices in the business context.
Next, we briefly describe the most common classification, which was pro-
posed by Howe and Strauss (2000). It includes four main generations: «baby
boomers», generations X, Y, and Z. Authors conclude that formation of the
basic common values of a given generation is mostly affected by the current
situation in the economy and politics, the level of technological development
of society as a whole and some other similar factors. For instance, one of the
influences of technological development on generational self-identification is
a wide range of additional skills required for most jobs since the 1980s
because of a speedy tech progress (Coombes 2009).
For the purposes of the present study, we rely on the definition of gener-
ation which accentuates on the specific birthdate as well as on the com-
monly experienced historical events and social trends (Howe and Strauss
2000; Kupperschmidt 2000; Raines 2003). Next, after the explicit specifica-
tion of generation’s definition we turn our discussion to the closer consid-
eration of each generational cohort, namely, ‘Baby Boomers’ and
Generations X, Y, Z. We briefly summarize major characteristics of four
‘on-the-stage’ generation and visually present them in the Table 1.
Talent management for diverse workforce
Many authors accentuate that talent definition should be the first step to
create effective TM practices within an organization (Tansley 2011; Nijs
et al. 2014). However, the analysis of academic literature shows that now
there is no single definition of talent. Moreover, some authors characterize
talent as a person while others attribute this concept rather to personality
characteristics (Davies and Davies 2010). Thus, the approaches to define
talent are usually divided into two general categories: object and subject.
The object approach defines talent as a personality trait. In this approach,
additional subcategories in ‘talent’ understanding are distinguished: (1) as a
natural ability (Davies and Davies 2010); (2) as a skill (Ericsson, Prietula,
296 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
9. and Cokely 2007; Pfeffer and Sutton 2006); (3) as an involvement (Pruis
2011); (4) and as a compliance (Pfeffer 2001). In the case of the subject
approach ‘talent’ is characterized as a person. There also are two subcatego-
ries: inclusive and exclusive. An inclusive approach involves the application
of the concept of talent to all employees of the company, including poten-
tial (Leigh 2009), while in terms of the exclusive approach a certain group
of employees is distinguished, such as: employees who demonstrate the
highest results (Smart 2005) or with great potential (Morley, Scullion,
Collings, and Schuler 2015). For the purposes of this research, we consider
‘talent’ in accordance with inclusive subject approach as we propose to
align company’s TM system development with generational distribution of
its current employees.
Diverse and inclusive workforce remains a valuable resource for many
organizations during last decades. TM specialists were normally focused on
recruitment and retention of employees by grouping them according to
gender, race, ethnicity, and characteristics. Nevertheless, there is an increas-
ing demand to add people’s generational belonging to this diversity mix as
it may have a positive effect on company performance due to the combin-
ation of talents and strengths of each generation (Bursch and Kelly 2014).
So that, generations should be taken into account by companies, when they
are pursuing the goal of its diversity level improvement, which could pave
the way to a firm’s outstanding results. Diversity of the workforce is, thus,
shaping companies’ TM system by proliferating the number of possible
employees’ categories (Wegge and Meyer 2020). In order to manage diverse
workforce companies should be open-minded to account for different
employees’ groups interests, views, values, and aspirations. Such a concen-
tration on people’s personalities would allow them to improve company’s
performance.
More precisely, modern successful TM system should be aligned with
generational distribution of a company’s workers. Generations can have a
significant impact on the development of TM practices as people from dif-
ferent generational cohorts may perceive and interprete company’s actions
in different ways. Therefore, TM system, which accounts for intergenera-
tional issues is expected to be more successful in terms of firm perform-
ance (Wegge and Meyer 2020) than the one which is not considering this
diversity dimension.
Nevertheless, our conclusion is that even though there is lack of consen-
sus in the extant literature on some aspects of the phenomenon, it is still
worth to dive deeper into the issue of generation diverse TM due to visible
differences between generational cohorts’ representatives and the need for
their effective and efficient communication at the workplace. there is no
universal approach to TM for people from four on-the-stage generations.
298 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
10. Organizations should be flexible, responsive to changing needs of their
employees, and committed to develop innovative ways of working with tal-
ented employees in order to sustain strong position in a highly competitive
environment. Moreover, companies need to simultaneously work with tal-
ents in three main categories of practices: attraction, development, and
retention of talented employees (Tarique and Schuler 2010).
Many authors state that the attraction of diverse workforce and the cre-
ation of a balance in terms of employees’ age in working teams is one of
the major issues for contemporary TM (Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch 2014).
As for recruitment process Parry and Urwin (2009) highlighted two crucial
points. The first one is to apply a wide range of recruitment channels for
candidates’ selection. For example, generations Y and Z prefer to use social
media for job searching and desire to use social media networks in the
future workplace to communication issues (Leidner, Koch, and Gonzalez
2010). The second point is to create a company brand which could be
attractive for all generations. As an example, Baby Boomers might posi-
tively react to mentions of company’s industry awards or other successes
while Millennials would care more about personal development opportuni-
ties and social responsibility (Stewart et al. 2017). Speaking about company
brand and image for potential candidates the optimal option is to create an
organizational structure which allows choosing different career tracks and
promoting this among potential candidates (Parry and Urwin 2009). For
young generations this is valuable because they have an opportunity to
understand entering the company their career development options. As for
older generations, especially Baby Boomers, it will mean for them that the
company is aging friendly (Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch 2014). According to
Rudolph, Toomey, and Baltes (2017), successful aging in the work context
means that older employees are still able to maintain the desirable level of
social and material well-being and at the same time keeping up the
required level of productivity. Development and retention of the talented
employees in multigenerational workforce may be also challenging.
According to Du Plessis et al. (2015) generations Y and Z are less inclined
to continuous work within the same organization than older generations. A
possible reason for this can be the fact that people from these young gener-
ations are more focused on their private life that is why changing working
places is not a problem for them (Crumpacker and Crumpacker 2007).
Hartman and McCambridge (2011) noted that among the young genera-
tions there is a high degree of ambition and rapid career growth, so if they
do not see career opportunities within the company, they prefer to change
it. Festing and Sch€
afer (2014) also argued that younger generations do have
ambitious goals and quickly absorb information. Accordingly, this leads to
fast career growth and talent management especially for retaining these
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 299
11. individuals becomes more crucial than is the case for the Baby Boomer
generation (Festing and Sch€
afer 2014). A study by Barkhuizen (2014)
showed that career development opportunities within a company
increase the chances to retain generation Y employees in the workplace. If
companies give an understanding to their employees about their value
and provide high levels of support, it allows to decline a turnover among
young generations. The employee’s responsiveness to such actions on the
part of the company can lead to higher organizational commitment
and loyalty.
Moreover, in a number of studies it was mentioned that mentoring could
be effective practice to develop and retain Generation Y representatives
(Stahno and Yang 2014; Holt, Marques, and Way 2012). At the same time,
providing an opportunity to be a mentor can help to retain employees of
older generations, according to other studies (Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch
2014; Bursch and Kelly 2014). Thus, mentoring as a part of TM seems to
be effective to retain employees. Speaking about Baby Boomers’ retention
in particular, the majority of research reveal that good practices for compa-
nies may become providing the flexibility of organizing work, permitting a
part-time work, creating an enabling environment and using recognition
systems to motivate them to stay working in the organization (Armstrong-
Stassen and Ursel 2009).
Additionally, the company should encourage communication between
different generations of employees as well as integrate teambuilding practi-
ces. It is important to understand the differences between their approaches
to work and the importance of digital reality for each segment of employ-
ees. This can help to build respect and improve communication within
individual groups (Mehra and Nickerson 2019). Vargas-Hern
andez and
Rodr
ıguez (2018) also highlighted that business leaders at all levels should
be flexible in their management styles.
To summarize, the majority of contemporary research reveal that issues
related to managing talents from different generations are necessary to be
carefully analyzed in order to develop effective TM practices which will
enable to attract, motivate and retain multigenerational workforce. In order
to achieve this balance, the companies should build such organizational
structure which would consider values of each generation. We can observe a
research stream, which is widely considering age as a diversity dimension
(Profili, Sammarra, and Innocenti 2017), however, it is not able to fully cover
generational specificities. Moreover, this approach neither provides us with
any integrative organizational and managerial mechanisms nor allows seeing
the configuration of TM practices with diversity related issues.
However, it is neither easy nor obvious path for an organization.
Diversity in any of its dimensions is always influenced by a number of
300 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
12. different factors that we see from the discussion above. Complicated and
constantly changing business environment as well as internal mutability
of companies’ culture and structure cause the need for companies to be
resilient and adaptive in response to changes in place (Roberson, Holmes
IV, and Perry 2017). Organizational mechanisms, which modern compa-
nies use to meet the rising demands from the side of the market, are
not appearing from nowhere. They are caused by a number of factors,
which influence companies’ decisions. Moreover, when tackle the issue of
operationalization of TM system within the company, one should be
aware of possible influential variables of this non-linear equation of com-
pany’s success. So that, it is important to identify what exactly drives
companies to seek for specific generation diverse TM practices. Thus, the
first research question of this paper is formulated as follows:
RQ1: What factors influence generation diverse TM practices?
There is a plenty of definitions of ‘firm performance’, thus, we hereby
want to specify to which of them we stick to in the present paper. We
focus primarily on financial performance of the firm, which is defined as
the firm’s ability to generate revenue, make profit, and increase its market
value through time (Westerman, Bonnet, and McAfee 2014). Our further
analysis is based on the estimation of the influence employees from differ-
ent generations have on firms’ market share growth, sales, return on invest-
ment, and profit growth.
According to Wegge and Meyer (2020), the presence of generation diver-
sity significantly increases the team’s effectiveness especially in case of
working on complex decision tasks. Grund and Westergaard-Nielsen (2008)
also found a positive correlation between generation diversity presence at
the workplaces and company performance. Moreover, they noticed that
older employees are more valued in such characteristics as know-how,
working morale and awareness for quality. In contrast, younger employees
have advantages concerning ability and willingness to learn and physical
resilience. Other researchers note a positive influence of generational diver-
sity at workplaces at specific industries. Concerning healthcare organiza-
tions, generational diversity at a workplace can enhance teamwork and
improve patient care (Clark 2017). Besides, the intergenerational workforce
positively impacts the hospitality industry where human dependency and
employee sensitivity are pivotal to operational success (Kamruzzaman
2020). It is noted that generational diversity in the industry may improve
client services by enhancing the managers’ understanding of the different
generation consumer needs in a more enriching way. Moreover, employ-
ment of individuals from different generations and age inclusive HRM
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 301
13. practices positively affects SMEs’ performance as well as employees’ collect-
ive turnover intentions according to the research (Bohm, Kunze, and
Bruch 2014).
It is possible to conclude that generational diversity may positively influ-
ence firm performance. However, HRM and TM practices also play a cru-
cial role to efficiently form and manage such diversity in order to reach a
positive impact. The majority of authors emphasize the topicality of work-
ing out some specific practices to maintain a positive climate in multi-
generation collectives (Pugh et al. 2008). Some authors highlight that it is
also important to understand potential risk that can appear in the intergen-
erational team (Murphy and Gibson 2010). Among them can be distin-
guished such risks as lack of mutual understanding, different working
styles, communication gaps. Thus, maintaining generational diversity in the
workplace may be a challenging path for both employers and employees.
However, the strong competitive advantage is hidden in this challenge for
entities that are planning to establish an intergenerational approach that is
why developing and implementing TM practices in order to attract,
develop, motivate and retain multigenerational workforce within company
are in high importance. To sum up, each generation has a set of peculiar-
ities which should be taken into consideration by TM in order to meet
their expectations of each generational workforce group (Angeline 2011).
Nowadays the shift in generational composition at a workplace may be
observed as Traditionalists are mostly retired, and a group of older employ-
ees mostly is formed by Baby Boomers. At the same time, the youngest
employees (Generation Z) are only entering the labor market. Thus, as the
outside labor market structure is rapidly changing, generational diversity
should receive greater attention from modern companies if they intend to
retain their competitive positions.
Nevertheless, there is an opposite view—some authors concluded that
generation diversity has a negative effect on company performance (Tsui,
Egan, and Xin 1995; Jackson 1996). Thus, we conclude that there is a
debate between scholars on the issue of generation diverse TM’s impact on
firm performance. Potential reasons for this contradiction are unidentified
influential mediating factors such as context, time, specific organizational
structures, and overall company-specific characteristics.
Most of the research in TM field state that proactive management of
generational diversity make a company more effective and successful in
terms of performance (Parry and Urwin 2009; Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch
2014; Nwosu, Igwe, and Nnadozie 2016). There is also evidence that com-
panies which do not address the generational differences have a tendency
of being less efficient, with higher turnover rates (Al-Asfour and Lettau
2014; Lewis and Wescott 2017). We, thus, assume that different TM
302 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
14. practices might have strong impact on firm performance. To verify this, we
formulate the second research question for the present study:
RQ2: Is there any relationship between generation diverse TM practice and firm
performance?
To sum up, the present research aims to prove the statement that
employers should identify and take into consideration a number of charac-
teristics of each generation which takes part in their company’s workforce.
Moreover, employers should foster a working environment that would
enhance productivity of each of those generations. Companies are to pro-
vide their employees with the information and skills needed to understand
the generational characteristics of their co-workers in order to create
mutual understanding among employees. Finally, mentor programs, gener-
ational diversity training, and enhanced communication methods designed
to cater to each generation’s preferences seem to be an important part for
attraction, development, and retention of talented employees.
Understanding and acknowledgement of the main differences and spe-
cific features of each generation can significantly help in finding and
attracting talents, and in the process of the formation of a successful team
which would achieve high results. Based on the review of the existing lit-
erature on the TM in the context of generational diversity and on the limi-
tations that are there, we present the empirical model for this research in
the Figure 1.
Driving factors
Country-level
Internal firm-level
External firm-level
Generation diverse TM practices
Attraction
Development
Retention
Generations
Baby Boomers
Generation X
Generation Y
Generation Z
Firm
performance
RQ1
RQ1
RQ2
Figure 1. Model for the empirical research.
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 303
15. Methodology
Our research process consists of 2 stages and took part in 2019–2020. First,
we conduct an interview with a HRM expert and seek to identify factors,
which drive generation diverse TM practices’ implementation. After we cre-
ate and use a questionnaire, which allows to answer our second research
question and describe the relationship between generation diverse TM and
firm performance. The respondents are HRM directors from 82 different
companies. The questionnaire was sent to them to be filled in an online
form. Among these companies 85% have headquarters in Russia, 15% in
other countries. As for geographic scope of operations, 27% of companies
have regional scope of operations, 35% – local, 28% – global. The age of
organizations is distributed as following: 1–5 years (10%), 6–10 years (17%),
11–20 years (24%), 21 and more years (49%). 27% of represented compa-
nies are small-size (less than 50 employees), 45% are middle-size companies
and the rest of sample is companies with more than 500 employees. The
complete companies’ profile is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. The companies’ profile for the first survey (HR directors).
Characteristics Frequency
Percentage
(% out of total N ¼ 82)
Headquaters location
Russia 70 85.37
Other countries 12 14.63
Age of organization
1–5 years 8 9.76
6–10 years 14 17.07
11–20 years 20 24.39
20 or more years 40 48.78
Geographic scope of operations
Global 29 37.80
Regional 31 26.83
Local 22 35.37
Company size
1–50 employees 22 26.83
51–500 employees 36 43.90
501–1000 employees 12 14.63
more than 1000 employees 12 14.63
Company’ industry
Chemical and Petrochemical 3 3.66
Development 3 3.66
Education 6 7.32
Electronics 1 1.22
FMCG 11 13.41
Fuel and Energy 5 6.10
HoReCa 8 9.76
IT/Telecom 2 2.44
Iron and Steel 2 2.44
Management/Finance/Consultancy services 8 9.76
Medicine 4 4.88
Municipality 2 2.44
Pharmaceutical 4 4.88
Production Engineering 13 15.85
Science 5 6.10
Transportation 2 2.44
Wholesales 3 3.66
304 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
16. The respondents of this questionnaire have access and actively participate in
systematic and planned actions, which are meant to hire, develop, and retain
employees with diverse background and abilities. The requirement for compa-
nies is presence on the Russian market.
We apply several methodological techniques. The main analytical tool is
Stata software. We perform descriptive statistics for the average assessment
of such people’s characteristics as gender, generation they belong to, level
of education, position in a company, an affiliated company’s origin, and
size (in terms of the quantity of hired employees). Further, the data ana-
lysis process is sub-divided into two parts, in accordance with the two
stages of the research methodology.
At the first stage of the study, we process answers from an expert
interview using content-analysis. By doing this way we identify main
driving factors that influence generation diverse TM practices. The main
goal of this stage is to understand the importance and prove the neces-
sity of managing generational diversity as well as to specify what practi-
ces are now being applied in companies operating in Russia. To achieve
this goal, we develop an interview guide, which consists of 27 open ques-
tions. First bunch of questions is devoted to the description of both
respondent’s profile and company’ profile. This part incorporates ques-
tions about a respondent’s gender, age, and current position in the com-
pany as well as about a company’s size, distribution of employees by
different generations, and the availability of diversity management practi-
ces in a company. The second block of questions relates to contemporary
generational diversity management and TM practices. This block includes
questions about: (1) respondent’s and company’s understanding of gener-
ation diversity definition and specific differences between people from
different generations; (2) difficulties which people from different genera-
tions may face in an organizational context; (3) TM practices which have
already been implemented in company where respondent works; (4) TM
practices which are supposed to be implemented according to respond-
ent’s opinion. Moreover, we ask respondents to give an example of how
generational diversity is managed in the company he or she works in
any given sphere: employees’ recruitment, training, development, motiv-
ation, or compensation. We interview an expert who works as HRM
(with a special focus on TM) for more than 5 years. The current position
of the respondent is a HRM business partner in a multinational FMCG
company in the local Russian office. Insights obtained from respondent’s
answers are aligned with existing literature. It allows us to validate fac-
tors that influence generation diverse TM practices and to verify them
further in a larger sample of respondents by the means of quantita-
tive methods.
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 305
17. At the second stage, we show descriptive statistics and conduct factor
analysis and regression analysis to verify if generation diverse TM practices
shape firm performance in a certain way. We examine these relationships
by conducting a questionnaire for HRM directors. All companies are multi-
national organizations operating on the Russian market.
All the further mentioned tables are available and can be provided
by request.
Results and discussion
Now we turn to the brief description of our analytical process, results’ pres-
entation, and their discussion through the lens of theory of generations.
First, most respondents (55% literally) see generational diversity as the
main diversity dimension to be taken into account when implementing and
improving a TM system. Second, we reveal the role of being focused on
generational differences, when attracting, developing, and retaining talented
employees. We adopt and adjust the constructs utilized by Latukha and
Veselova (2019) to evaluate the importance of such a focus using 7-points
Likert scale. The descriptive statistics’ results are presented in the Table 3.
The results show that companies are mostly focused on talent retention
practices. Companies believe that the most important aspects for employees
from different generations, while being attracting to start a career in a cer-
tain company, are equal salary opportunities, equal opportunities for candi-
dates in the recruitment process, and the attractiveness of organization’s
profile. Recruitment campaigns with an explicit focus on generational dif-
ferences get the lowest indicator. It means that companies strive to create
equal working conditions for generation diverse employees, however, they
do not put it explicitly on the stage of recruitment campaigns’ creation.
As for talent development practices statistics, financial assistance to all
employees, regardless of age, to upgrade their skills get the highest estimate.
There are also two more items, which are prominently higher than others:
equal access to learning and development programs and equal training
opportunities for all employees.
Generation-focused talent retention practices get the highest variation
among all the three groups. The disciplinary procedures applied equally to
all employees regardless of age, honest financial motivation, equal non-
monetary rewards and recognition, and transparency of monetary rewards
and/or compensation and benefit programs for all employees obtain the
highest estimates (all means are above 6.0). We conclude then that compa-
nies are ready to invest in the learning and development programs for their
employees as well as to recognize the importance of considering gener-
ational diversity. Nevertheless, according to the opinion of companies’
306 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
20. representatives, main efforts should be aimed at talent retention practices.
It indicates the current weakest point of TM in the Russian market.
What is important, there are several issues which appear to be the
most controversial ones, according to our analysis. The most significant
variation in answers on talent attraction practices is observed in the age-
based biases and stereotypes. In talent retention practices, we see the
most significant variation of answers regarding surveys’ conduction to
identify issues related to attitudes and behaviors in the workplace (stand-
ard deviation of 2.17), and a policy on a part-time and flex-time employ-
ment for all employees (the standard deviation of 2.22). We assume that
such a high variation might be caused by the differences among compa-
nies from our sample and their managers’ personal approaches to address
these issues.
Third, we conduct an exploratory factor analysis by the means of principal
component extraction method. To determine the number of factors, we
employ Kaiser’s criterion and retain only factors with eigenvalues greater
than 1. We also use ProMax rotation method as we expect the underlying
factors to be in some way intercorrelated. All in all, three factors (talent
attraction, talent development, and talent retention) were retained with factor
loadings above 0.4. Cronbach’s Alpha of each factor is above 0.9, what con-
firms their reliability and accuracy. Further, we obtain the fourth factor,
which is TM system, as a second-order factor of previously identified talent
attraction, talent development, and talent retention. The KMO test (0.85 –
meritorious) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Chi-Square ¼ 2919.084; df ¼
703; p .001) justify the adequacy of our sample. Table 4 represents the
results of the factor analysis.
In the fourth step, which is devoted to the identification of factors which are
important for the development of generation-focused TM practices, we use
these four obtained variables. This part of the analysis is divided into three sec-
tions. We progressively analyze country-level, internal firm-level, and external
firm-level factors. The factor analysis’ results are presented in Table 5.
Fifth, we reveal how country-level and both external and internal firm-
level factors affect talent attraction, talent development and talent retention
practices as well as TM system overall. Moreover, we evaluate the strength
of that impact. For this purpose, we employ the regression analysis (OLS
regression) and run four separate models. Equations for each model follow
the same logical structure:
y ¼ b0 þ b1 Country Level Factors þ b2 Firm Level Factors Internal
þ b3 Firm Level Factors External þ b4 Number of Employees
þ b5 Office Location þ e,
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 309
24. where “y” is talent attraction or talent development or talent retention or
TM system.
Table 6 represents the results of these four regression models.
We observe that all four models are statistically significant, However,
only external firm-level factors appeared to be statistically significant. It
means that an increase for 1 point in external firm-level would cause an
increase for 0.38–0.44 in generation-focused TM practices’ implementation.
We explain this finding by the fact that company is a living organism and,
therefore, is significantly influenced by the external environment. Such fac-
tors as an orientation to suppliers, customers, reputation, and competition
force companies to develop and apply sophisticated TM practices in order
to maintain and improve their performance. Moreover, the mimetic iso-
morphism mechanism from institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell
1983) is another possible way to explain the phenomenon. Organizations
tend to copy practices and policies of their counterparts that seem for them
to be the most successful ones.
Sixth, we test the relationship between the implementation of gener-
ation-focused TM practices and firm performance also by the means of
factor analysis which allows us to obtain the firm performance variable
for the further analysis. Table 7 presents the results of factor analysis.
The values of KMO test (0.85 – meritorious) and Bartlett’s test of spher-
icity (Chi-square 401.577, p-value .000) confirm the adequacy of our sam-
ple. Cronbach’s Alpha equal to 0.93 for the factor confirms its reliability
and accuracy. To confirm that our four previously obtained variables (TM
attraction, TM development, TM retention, TM system) are interconnected
with new one (firm performance), we check for intercorrelation., which is
presented in the Table 8.
Table 6. The regression analysis results.
Variables Model-1 Model-2 Model-3 Model-4
TM Attraction TM Development TM Retention TM System
Country level Factors –0.16 –0.15 –0.17 –0.16
(0.14) (0.14) (0.14) (0.13)
Firm level Internal Factors –0.07 –0.16 –0.03 –0.12
(0.14) (0.14) (0.14) (0.13)
Firm Level External Factors 0.43*** 0.44*** 0.381** 0.44***
(0.15) (0.15) (0.15) (0.14)
Number of Employees 0.16 0.17 0.04 0.14
(0.12) (0.12) (0.12) (0.11)
Office Location 0.032 0.33 0.33 0.27
(0.29) (0.29) (0.28) (0.27)
Constant 0.36 0.59 0.93** 0.63*
(0.37) (0.36) (0.36) (0.35)
Observations 82 82 82 82
F (6, 75) 2.99 3.88 3.54 4
Prob F 0.011 0.002 0.004 0.002
R-squared 0.193 0.237 0.220 0.242
Standard errors in parentheses p .01, p .05, p .1.
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 313
25. After that we employ the OLS regression analysis to identify the type
and direction of relationship between firm performance and generation-
focused TM practices. We run four models, which are different in terms of
the structure of dependent variables. Firm performance is an independent
variable for each model. The equation for each model possesses the follow-
ing structure:
Firm Performance ¼ b0 þ b1 ðTM Attraction or TM Development or
TM Retention or TM SystemÞ þ b2 Headquarters location
þ b3 Number of Employees þ b4 Office Location
þ b5 Scope of Operations þ e
All the four models are statistically significant and it, thus, answers our
second research question and supports the idea of expedience of implemen-
tation generation diverse TM practices.
Table 7. The factor analysis for firm performance.
Items Factor1
Market share growth over the past three years 0.70
Sales growth over the past three years 0.89
Average return on investment over the past three years 0.81
Average profit over the past three years 0.95
Average profit growth over the past three years 0.95
Cronbach’s alpha 0.93
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analyses
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin – 0.85 MERITORIOUS.
Bartlett test Chi-square 401.577 (p-value .000) Degree of freedom 10.
Table 8. The regression analysis for firm performance.
Firm Performance Firm Performance Firm Performance Firm Performance
TM Attraction 0.26***
(0.09)
TM Development 0.24***
(0.09)
TM Retention 0.22**
(0.11)
TM System 0.28***
(0.10)
Headquarters’ location –0.53 –0.47 –0.43 –0.51
(0.69) (0.70) (0.71) (0.70)
Number of Employees 0.1 0.10 0.14 0.10
(0.11) (0.16) (0.12) (0.12)
Office Location 0.89 0.72 0.74 0.79
(0.68) (0.68) (0.70) (0.68)
Scope of Operations 0.15 0.17 0.15 0.16
(0.14) (0.14) (0.14) (0.14)
Constant –1.02 –1.12 –1.07 –1.33*
(0.66) (0.73) (0.87) (0.77)
Observations 82 82 82 82
F (7, 74) 3.50 3.22 2.67 3.32
Prob F 0.003 0.005 0.016 0.004
R-squared 0.249 0.233 0.202 0.239
Standard errors in parentheses.
p .01, p .05, p .1.
314 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
26. At the final step, we further confirm our findings by HRM expert’s
opinion on the topicality of the development of specific TM strategies
for working with each of four generations because of their essential dif-
ferences in values, perceptions, and attitudes. Namely, people differ by
speed of decision making and learning, flexibility to adopt changes,
ability to empathically perceive the surrounding environment, depth of
tasks’ elaboration, degree of immersion in details, and level of responsi-
bility. Moreover, both qualitative and quantitative research methods
show that the implementation of generation diverse TM practices is an
appropriate.
Answering our first research question, we find several most important
driving factors that influence generation diverse TM practices. First, the
expert interview shows that the most significant factors are: way of thinking
and decision-making; level of responsibility; reaction to changes and inno-
vations; skillset; level of ambition and corporate culture specifics. These fac-
tors are well-aligned with the extant scientific knowledge about different
generations (Howe and Strauss 2000), where these specific personal charac-
teristics tend to vary among different generational cohorts. Significant
experienced life-events shape people’s way of thinking as well as their way
of outer world’s perception, what is crucial in terms of the process of per-
sonality formation and development.
As for the questionnaire’s results, companies see equal salary opportuni-
ties, equal recruitment process, and attractiveness of organization’s profile
for employees from different generations as the most valuable talent attrac-
tion practices. This finding is well aligned with conclusions of other
researchers from TM field (Parry and Urwin 2009; Leidner, Koch, and
Gonzalez 2010; Bohm, Kunze, and Bruch 2014). As for talent development
practices, financial assistance to all employees regardless of age to upgrade
their skills, equal access to learning and development programs, and equal
training opportunities are highly estimated by companies. Talent retention
practices appear to be on companies’ high priority, as well. HRM directors
highly evaluate the importance of equal non-monetary rewards, recognition
regardless of age, transparency of monetary rewards and/or compensation,
and benefit programs for employees from different generations. However,
while equality in the workplace is of high importance companies should be
aware that what they are doing for their employees could be perceived dif-
ferently by the latter depending on a generational cohort they belong to.
From the perspective of the theory of generations, obtained factors correl-
ate with those crucial aspects, which distinguish generational cohorts from
one another.
Second, we come to conclusion that only external factors are statistically
significant and influence of TM practices and TM system overall. Among
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 315
27. external factors, the most important ones are the need to operate globally,
to meet customers’, strategic partners’, and suppliers’ expectations, and to
maintain strong employer brand and reputation. These are very logical pur-
poses for any business in function. However, we can hardly imagine how
those could be achieved without internal strength of the business entity,
which is expressed in a team of the ‘best-of-the-best’ professionals, who are
treated and motivated properly.
To sum up, if we compile the information from HRM expert interview
and questionnaire’s results, we see that there is a kind of misunderstanding
between two parties in place. Employees are waiting for different things
from their employers, while employers are striving to promote equality,
which is undoubtedly important to be present in a corporate culture, but
not alone. More in-depth focus on and understanding of people, who are
making companies successful by daily work could open new horizons for
modern businesses. And we believe that one of the steps to be taken
upfront is the implementation of generation diverse TM practices and the
development of special mechanisms, which would allow the functioning of
TM system in organizations in a smooth way.
As for our second research question, which is devoted to explaining
relationships between generation diverse TM and firm performance, we
apply a number of statistical tests, including descriptive statistics, factor
analysis, and regression analysis. We conclude that generational diversity
positively influences both firm performance and efficiency of communica-
tion between employees as well as with company’s clients. Generation
diverse TM practices also play a crucial role to efficient formation and
managing such diversity to reach a higher positive impact on firm per-
formance. Some scholars emphasize the necessity of working out the
specific practices which would allow to maintain a friendly climate in
multi-generation collectives (Pugh et al. 2008). However, it is also import-
ant to understand potential risks that can appear in the intergenerational
team: the lack of mutual understanding, different working styles, commu-
nication gaps (Murphy and Gibson 2010). It corresponds with other
recent research in this field (Grund and Westergaard-Nielsen 2018;
Wegge and Meyer 2020), where a positive correlation between generation
diversity presence at the workplaces and firm performance is also con-
firmed. These findings show how the evidence from the theory of genera-
tions (Howe and Strauss 2000) could be profitably used in a corporate
context and how it contributes to firm results. Moreover, this theoretical
perspective allows us to understand better people’s peculiarities what is of
crucial importance while managing people in organizations. Generational
diversity is an important diversity dimension, which influences firm effi-
ciency and the way it operates daily.
316 M. LATUKHA ET AL.
28. Conclusion
Generation diversity becomes a challenge for modern TM because of mas-
sive worldwide trends associated with increased life expectancy, massive
generational shift, and high levels of uncertainty for modern businesses.
Thus, understanding the needs and the way of thinking of different genera-
tions could significantly increase the potential of building the most efficient
TM practices in an organization. The main objective of the present study is
to investigate generational diversity as an important diversity dimension
and to analyze its possible implications in TM practices with an intention
to improve firm performance.
As a result, we identify several factors that influence generation diverse
TM practices’ development in the most significant way. They are global
market orientation; expectations of customers, suppliers, and strategic part-
ners’; strong employer’s brand; and competition. These factors can shape t
TM system of a company building around employees from different gener-
ations. And in order to meet the rising expectations of counterparties and
stay competitive companies should widen the number of tools used in their
TM practices as a former’s specific dimension. These external firm-level
factors determine a company’s willingness to sustain and further develop
its TM system. And this is well-aligned with the evidence from the extant
knowledge on how influential the external environment is for a company’s
approach to its TM. Changing nature of business environment forces com-
panies to perform their best in terms of people, whom they try to hire at
the moment and whom they have already hunted, in order to stay competi-
tive on the market (Edward E. Lawler 2017). Recruitment of the best peo-
ple in a highly competitive environment is at the same moment a challenge
and a necessity (Sen 2019). And the fact of presence of highly talented
employees in each generational cohort allows making a diversity practices
implementation in the workplace even more valuable step in an organiza-
tional development.
We also confirm positive relationship between implementation of gener-
ation diverse TM practices and firm performance. This finding is aligned
with some other studies of the phenomenon (Grund and Westergaard-
Nielsen 2018; Wegge and Meyer 2020), what strengthens the importance of
having that relationship in mind, when planning a company’s future.
This paper contributes to the existing literature on TM by proving the
importance of generations as a diversity dimension in the organizational
context. Also, it allows to better understand specific factors, which are
important to bear in mind when dealing with people from different genera-
tions. TM system which is developed in a strong alignment with people’s
diverse backgrounds, values, and attitudes could bring an enormous com-
petitive advantage to firms which are willing to work on it. Therefore, we
JOURNAL OF EAST-WEST BUSINESS 317
29. see those organizational mechanisms, which are devoted to the support of
a specific group. The analysis of generation-specific initiatives in attraction,
development, and retention of talented employees from companies’ point
of view enables to add to previous studies (Parry and Urwin 2009; Bohm,
Kunze, and Bruch 2014; Bursch and Kelly 2014; Du Plessis et al. 2015) and
to reveal the concept of diversity in a new perspective. Our findings con-
tribute to the understanding of the concept of TM as a very multi-faceted
dimension of HRM, which takes different forms depending on the targeted
group of people.
From the practical point of view, the present study can be valuable for sev-
eral reasons. First of all, organizations can consider current research as an
agenda to create an effective generation diverse TM system and to make it a
source of sustainable competitive advantage. Moreover, the positive relation-
ship between generation diverse TM and firm performance in Russian realities
confirms the expedience of the implementation of such specific TM practices.
Finally, our research has several limitations that should be taken into
account. First, the research questions can be tested on a bigger sample.
Second, the data was collected using one context, therefore, our findings
could be expanded to other regions of the world by conducting continuing
investigations in order to generalize results. Country-specific issues could
be valuable as the definition of different generations can vary in different
countries due to demographic, economic reasons, and other (Kilber,
Barclay, and Ohmer 2014). Thus, a cross-country study could also be a dir-
ection for future research. Third, we do not control for company’s industry
in the present study. Including of the industry as one more variable in our
model can also be a way to further develop the obtained results. Research
on different generations’ perception of specific TM practices would be a
logical continuation and development of our work.
ORCID
Anna Kriklivetc http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4131-6725
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