Sharing older workers among organizations: a vignette study investigating organizational, relational and task characteristics

Abstract

With the aging of the workforce, organizations are face with the question how to ensure the employability of their older workers. To date, most of the research focuses on internal policies and practices (training, work load reduction, and so on). This study explores an external option, namely hiring older workers from other organizations and sending older workers to another organization. Based on theories about cooperation between organizations, four hypotheses are formulated (about characteristics of the organizations, the task of the worker and the relationship between the organization). These hypotheses were tested using a vignette study. Evidence was found for three main conditions for the willingness to hire and send older workers, namely: absorptive capacity, measurable tasks, and trust between organizations.

Keywords

• inter-organizational cooperation
• prisoner’s dilemma
• absorptive capacity
• task measurability
• trust
• network size