Kenneth S. Shultz

Employee Retirement: A Review and Recommendations for Future Investigation

Despite the obvious importance of retirement to employees, their employing organizations, and the larger society, the last comprehensive review of employee retirement in the field of organizational science was published more than 20 years ago. As such, the first purpose of this review is to provide a summary of key theoretical and empirical developments in employee retirement research since Beehr in 1986. A second purpose of this review is to highlight inconsistent findings revealed by studies that were designed to answer the same research questions. By identifying and scrutinizing those inconsistent findings, this study expects to provide suggestions and recommendations to further the theoretical development in the field of retirement research to address these research gaps. As a result, this proposed review would be of interest to scholars in a wide variety of areas within the organizational sciences, including human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and research methods.

Antecedents of Bridge Employment: A Longitudinal Investigation

Bridge employment is the labor force participation pattern increasingly observed in older workers between their career jobs and their complete labor force withdrawal. It serves as a transition process from career employment to full retirement. Typical bridge employment decisions include full retirement, career bridge employment, and bridge employment in a different field. In the current study, 3 dominant theories (i.e., role theory, continuity theory, and life course perspective) on retirement processes were reviewed. On the basis of these theories, the authors proposed 4 categories of antecedents (i.e., individual attributes, job-related psychological variables, family-related variables, and a retirement-planning-related variable) of different types of bridge employment decisions. The authors used longitudinal data of a large, nationally representative sample from the Health and Retirement Study (F. Juster & R. Suzman, 1995) to test the current hypotheses. These data were analyzed with multinomial logistic regression, and most of the hypotheses were supported by the results. The implications of this study are discussed at both theoretical and practical levels.

Psychological Perspectives on the Changing Nature of Retirement

The concept and the process of retirement are rapidly evolving. As a result, psychologists are in a unique position to understand and explain the dynamics behind the changing face of retirement. We begin this article with a brief overview of the history of retirement and then note the various definitions used when studying retirement. We then propose that taking a temporal view of studying retirement would be most advantageous for psychologists. Psychological conceptualizations of retirement are then discussed, and we link these conceptualizations to studying the changing nature of retirement. Finally, we conclude with some suggestions for future research in the area of retirement that would be particularly relevant for psychologists to consider.

Influences on the bridge employment decision among older USA workers

In this study the authors examined the four organizational and personal variables of voluntariness of retirement, flexibility, pre-retirement planning and anticipated financial reward to determine their influence on the decision of older workers to consider early retirement, continue work, obtain bridge employment in the same job or obtain bridge employment in a different job. Participants were 2771 US workers from the Health and Retirement Study who were currently working and aged 50 years old and older. Results of a direct discriminant function analysis showed that three of the four variables-voluntariness of retirement, anticipated financial reward and flexibility-significantly distinguished older workers in the four retirement/employment decision categories. The implications of the results for both individuals and organizations are discussed.

Age Differences in the Demand–Control Model of Work Stress: An Examination of Data From 15 European Countries

There have been many tests of Karasek’s demand—control model of work stress. However, no studies have examined how the model may differentially apply to older versus younger workers. Due to age changes in cognitive processing, the psychological demands of jobs may interact differently with controls for younger versus older workers. Therefore, the study uses data from the Eurobarometer to examine how the demand—control model of work stress may function differently for older versus younger workers. The results indicate that different controls may in fact buffer different types of job demands for younger versus older workers. The findings reveal that only the interaction between problem solving and time to complete tasks was significant for younger workers. For older workers, however, the interactions between time deadlines and having sufficient time to complete tasks, autonomy, and the interaction between problem solving and schedule flexibility are significant predictors of self-reported stress.

Responding to the Challenge of a Changing Workforce: Recruiting Nontraditional Demographic Groups

As a result of a shortage of qualified applicants and the changing nature of the demographic composition of the workforce, there has been a recent increase in interest among human resource professionals in the targeting of recruitment efforts toward specific subgroups of the population. Based on the professional literature, this article discusses principles for the recruitment of Older Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

Individual differences in the ability to fake on personality measures

Abstract Industrial psychologists continue to chastise personality measures for their potential threats to predictive validity because of assumed fakability. While the extent of such threats to predictive validity continue to be debated, no researchers appear to have looked at the fakability construct as a possible individual difference variable in its own right. Therefore, in the present study 323 subjects completed a Big Five measure twice, at 1 week apart. Faking was measured by within-subject correlations between the honest and fake conditions. While it was hypothesized that the ability to fake good would be conceptually related to self-presentation, the results suggest that the ability to fake is an independent construct. The potential usefulness of several indices of faking are discussed, as are future directions for research in this area.

Why Older Adults Seek Employment: Differing Motivations Among Subgroups

Differences among four subgroups of older adults seeking employment—midlife career changers aged 40 to 55, displaced workers aged 56 to 61, younger retirees aged 62 to 69, and older retirees aged 70 or older—were examined. The underlying assumption was that different subgroups of older adults have different motivations for seeking employment. To test this assumption, a 71-item survey measuring subgroups of older adults, their motivation to work, the extent to which they wanted to engage in work, and their need for satisfaction and achievement through work was administered at several public agencies in inland southern California. One hundred one older adults volunteered to participate in the study. The results of a one-way multivariate analysis of variance showed that older adults in the different subgroups could be differentiated by factors addressing the income and benefits associated with work and the scheduling needs of job seekers. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of the results for organizations and needs for future research.

Gender differences on coping with job stress and organizational outcomes

Abstract The potential differing effects of coping on work-related outcomes for men and women were investigated. Participants were recruited from night classes in psychology and business and asked to complete an 113-item questionnaire. Of the 400 questionnaires distributed, 181 fully completed questionnaires (56 men and 125 women) were returned within 1 week to the respective instructors and thus were included in the analyses. All participants were working full time (< 35 hours per week). The results indicated that men and women differed on few coping responses. However, multiple regression analyses did suggest different trends on the effectiveness of coping for men and women. These results are discussed in terms of men and womens differing responses to stress in the workplace

Introduction to the changing nature of retirement: an international perspective

Purpose - The purpose of this overview is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of retirement, noting five key issues and directions for future research which are addressed collectively in the compilation of papers that follow: the changing nature of retirement; the need for an interdisciplinary perspective on retirement; the need to look at both individual and organizational perspectives; international variations in contexts and processes; and the need for a broad methodological perspective. The authors then outline and summarize the seven studies included in this special issue, as well as acknowledge those who were instrumental in bringing this special issue to fruition. Design/methodology/approach - The Findings - The findings of the studies included in this special issue touch on retirement planning and decision making, as well as employer perspectives on the global aging workforce. Practical implications - Each article includes practical implications with regard to retirement for the country and/or constituents examined in the study. Originality/value - Taken as a collective, the papers in this special issue help to propel forward in significant ways the study of retirement from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.