A Person-centric Latent Profile Approach to Generational Cohorts in Organizations

Jiaxin Liu, Fuli Li

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceedingConference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

A young cohort of Millennials born in and after 1990, named “post-90s” in China, is becoming the major workforce. Mass media and empirical studies have reported greater challenges of managing younger employees than managing older generation employees. However, research has inconsistent findings regarding the differences across generations, and we know little about whether the differences can help explain the generational differences in job performance. To address this void, this research proposes a three-dimensional framework of generational cohorts to focus on the configurations of key indicators with each other, including (1) personalities of who they are (i.e., self-efficacy, psychological entitlement, and openness), (2) work values of what they think (i.e., leisure, intrinsic, extrinsic, altruistic, and social values), and (3) work motivations of why they motivate (i.e., career aspiration, work-life balance, and work flexibility). Specifically, we adopt the person-centric latent profile approach to portray the constellation of post-90s Millennials and before-90s older generations. Based on the data of 954 post-90s Millennial employees and 899 before-90s employees collected in a Chinese dairy company, results show four similar profiles (i.e., harmonist, workaholic, modest, and laissez-faire) in both two generations. Using the company’s archival performance records, we further compare the differences in performance across four profiles and identify the harmonist profile as the high-performing profile for both post-90s and before-90s generations. Accordingly, we show a more comprehensive picture of generational cohorts and shed light on the idea that there are more similarities than differences in configurations and performance between post-90s cohorts and older generations.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAcademy of Management Proceedings 2024
EditorsSonia Taneja
PublisherAcademy of Management
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2024
Event84th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2024 - Chicago, United States
Duration: 9 Aug 202413 Aug 2024
https://aom2024.eventscribe.net/agenda.asp?pfp=Schedule (Conference Program)
https://my.aom.org/ProgramDocs/2024/pdf/AOM_2024_Annual_Meeting_Program.pdf (Conference program pdf)
https://aom.org/events/annual-meeting/future-annual-meetings/2024-innovating-for-the-future-policy-purpose-and-organizations (Conference Website)
https://journals.aom.org/loi/amproc/group/d2020.y2024 (Conference Proceedings)

Publication series

NameAcademy of Management Proceedings
PublisherAcademy of Management
Number1
Volume2024
ISSN (Print)0065-0668
ISSN (Electronic)2151-6561

Conference

Conference84th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2024
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChicago
Period9/08/2413/08/24
OtherInnovating for the Future: Policy, Purpose, and Organizations
Internet address

User-Defined Keywords

  • Human Resources

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