Boundary Conditions to Prevent Age Discrimination in Age Diverse Companies : Inspecting the Role of TMT Stereotypes and Organizational Efforts to Support Diversity

The ongoing demographic change, triggered by decreasing birth rates and increasing life expectancy, urges companies to deal with an increasing aging and age diversity of their workforce (Dychtwald et al. 2004). A previous study (Kunze et al., 2010) has shown that age diversity in the company as a whole is related to higher levels of age-discrimination Saturday 8:30-9:45 472 EAWOP Conference 2011 climate that in turn negatively affects company performance, arguing with social-identity (Turner, 1987), timetable-violation (Lawrence, 1988) and prototypematching theories (Perry & Finkelstein, 1999). However, beyond these results, for practitioners it would be extremely helpful to gain knowledge on potential boundary conditions that might prevent the emergence of age discrimination in age diverse companies. Therefore, this study aims (a) at replicating the mediating role of age discrimination climate in the age diversity/ company performance linkage and (b) at introducing age stereotypes of the top management team (TMT) and organizational efforts to support diversity as moderators for the age diversity/age-discrimination climate relationship. Age stereotypes of the TMT are expected to positively moderate the age diversity/discrimination relationship by affective sharing (Barsade, 2002), contagion effects (Hatffeld et al., 1994), as well as socialization processes (Ashfort & Humphrey, 1993) that might spillover negative stereotypes of the TMT in the whole company. On the other hand, organizational efforts to support diversity (Triana & Garcia, 1999) are assumed to be a negative moderator for the age diversity/discrimination association through creating an environment that enables respect for all employees, regardless of their age group (Hicks-Clarkes & Illies, 2000; Mor-Barak & Levin, 2002). Hypotheses of the moderated-mediation model are tested, applying structural equation modeling and bootstrapping procedures, in a sample of 76 small and medium sized companies with more than 18.000 employees. To circumvent common method concerns, the study's constructs were collected from different data sources (employees, HR-representatives and TMT members). Overall, all hypotheses receive support in our sample, providing practitioners in companies with first indications, which context factors are relevant to avoid negative performance consequences of age diversity.