Abstract:
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how generational constructs work in an organisational setting and to investigate how generational diversity affects organisations. A phenomenological ontology, interpretive epistemology and hermeneutic methodology framed this focused qualitative research, which sought to answer the question: How are generational constructs characterised by certain groups in the organisation and what kind of ‘generation work’ do these groupings enable? The study involved semi-structured interviews with young leaders and Human Resource (HR) practitioners. Those interviews were transcribed and analysed with a light discursive form of thematic analysis, which scrutinised and interpreted the research participants’ language and experiences surrounding generational constructs and generational diversity. The data analysis and interpretation of these interviews produced three core insights. The first was the subjectivity with which generational constructs were applied. Not only did the research participants use subjective language in their depiction of generational constructs, but they were uncomfortable using generational constructs to describe themselves, while they were at ease using them to describe others. The second fundamental insight of this thesis was that all research participants used generational constructs to some extent to understand their workforce. The third key insight was that generational and age constructs were used to describe manifest intergenerational conflicts, although there seemed to be underlying latent conflicts involving power and voice and other organisational issues. The knowledge generated from this thesis could act as a foundation for future research into this emergent field. This research provides a platform for improving scholarly understanding of generational diversity in organisations. It also provides an opening for further research into the usefulness of generational constructs and indeed risks associated with the use of generational and age constructs to categorise the workforce.