Essays on the implications of organizational age diversity and compensation for firm performance

One of the most critical demographic developments facing Western societies is the aging of their population. This has a crucial impact on the age composition or demography within organizations, too. People generally work until a higher age, implying that employees of many different ages have to work together in the workplace, all with their unique experience, history, training, knowledge and values. This dissertation investigates the implications of an organization's age diversity for organizational performance. It is composed of three empirical studies that examine each from a different perspective the complex but critical phenomenon of organizational age diversity. First, we scrutinize how the multifaceted nature of the construct of age diversity can be operationalized. Second, we examine the conditions under which workforce age diversity is beneficial or harmful for organizational performance. The third and final study combines age diversity with organizations' compensation policy, by investigating the conditions under which seniority-based versus performance-based pay is effective in boosting organizational performance.