Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature linked to older workers' work orientations and the use of typologies to identify groups of older workers according to their work and retirement patterns.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken entails reviewing books and academic journals from the area of human resource management, retirement, diversity and pensions. The paper focuses on the industrial sociology literature as the grounding for the construction of older worker typologies.Findings – The review of the typologies reveals that the older workforce is a wide range of workers whose experience in work impacts their attitude toward and planning for retirement. Policy makers cannot, therefore, take a “one size fits all” approach to designing incentives for delaying retirement.Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of the review is that the studies which have been reviewed are based on both qualitative and quantitative data and have focused on different...

Who would delay retirement? Typologies of older workers

This paper presents a conceptual model describing the influence an organization and certain non-work factors have on employees' value orientation. It is argued that since values differ with regard to their resistance to change influences, core values which are less susceptible to change should be distinguished from periphery values which are more susceptible. Hence, the socialization of employees' values at work is not only a function of the influences exerted by the organization, but also to which values these influences are directed. It is proposed here that organizational influence may affect periphery values, while core values are affected by non-work influences. A preliminary test of this model is conducted by path analyzing secondary data from 544 Israeli workers. The results basically support these propositions.

Factors Influencing Workers' Orientations: A Secondary Analysis of Israeli Data

A6stract: Neoclassical economic theory assumes that people pursue utilfl ity maximization within an objective framework, evident to all, that serves as the basis for the interaction. Agents are assumed to be deS tached observers who see the situation as it is in objective reality. It is argued in this article that there is no ob jective ground for interaction that exists apart from the understanding of economic agents. Agents have orientations that change over time depending on the way that the situS ation is currently understood. Depth of understanding and the extent of common ground depend on the quality of attention and the will to openness and honesty. EKorts to maintain connections with others make possible mutual understanding and visions of the common good that enable the coordinated pursuit of desired states of the world.

Mutual understanding, the state of attention, and the ground for interaction in economic systems

In the last 15 years increasing attention has been paid to what has become known as the “quality of working life”. Job design, sometimes known as work design, work organisation or the humanisation of work, has emerged as a recognisable area of study. There are now innumerable articles which include such terms in their titles and a number of books which deal with the development and dimensions of the subject area. What are the chances that a discipline will develop? How likely is it that the discipline will be applied in practice? The answer to these questions rests upon the answer to the four main questions examined in this paper.

Who Cares About Job Design? Some Reflections on its Present and Future

This study proposes that the value of a job characteristic may change to the extent that the satisfaction with the characteristic changes. The proposal was tested with North American immigrants in Israel. It was found that the loss in satisfaction they had experienced with extrinsic aspects of their work in the new country was accompanied by an increased importance placed on these factors. A Maslowian interpretation was offerd as explanation: lower-level occupational goals, taken for granted before migration, became important again as one feels deprived of these conditions in the new work situation.

Kevin J. Russell

Papers

The orientation to work controversy and the social construction of work value systems