Research On Generational Differences Of Employees’Work Values

Work values influences individual work attitudes and work behaviours, in orderto increase the effectiveness of HRM, understanding employees’ work values isimportant and necessary. Nowadays, the increasing generational differences in workvalues has taken shocks to management practices in China, and maken themanagement more complex and difficult. So, this paper focuses on the generationaldifferences in Chinese employees’ work values.First, this paper reviews literatures of values, work values, social change,cultural transmission and change, and generation theory.The previous researches ofsociology mainly focus on the generational differences in family, neglect thegenerational differences in workpalce. In management science, the research ongenerational differences of work values is rare, especially in China. And the scope ofwork values structure is limited.Second, based on literature analysis, this paper defines work values structure,which includes work centrality, core work values, work charactirstcs preferences, andoccupational values. Then the antecedents of work values are analyzed, includingpersonality, demographic traits, socialization, and macro-social factors. Finally, thepaper analyzes the outcomes of work values, including job satisfaction, workhappiness, organization committement, organization citizenship behavior, workengagement, turnover, and attitude and feeling to workplace fun.Third, this paper groups Chinese employees into50s,60s,70s,80s fourgenerations according to their birth times, and analyzes the growth courses of eachgeneration, finally analyzes the generational differences of work values, including thedifferences on work centrality, work values orientation, work charactirstcspreferences, and occupational values.Forth, this paper analyzes the forming mechanism and antecedents ofgenerational differences of work values. Generational differences of work values isthe inevitable outcome of social and cultural change, and is the expression of workvalues change. Work values is formed at individual’s growth time, and after that it keeps relatively stable, but different generation has different growth time, thereforethe genreational differences of work values appears.Based on that, this paper probesits forming mechanism model. In China, some factors promote generationaldifferences of work values. For example, the changes of economic system,distribution form, economic sectors, employment policy in the social transition makework values more individualistic, materialistic, and make the four generations’growth situations and work values different.The changes in work and organization,the differences of career development stages and life cycle stages also increasegenerational differences of work values.Furthermore, this paper also analyzes the outcomes of generational differencesof work values to organization management. On individual level, it makes thegenerational differences of job satisfaction, organization committement, organizationcitizenship behavior, work engagement, turnover, organization political behavior, andattitude and feeling to workplace fun. On organizational level, it forms organizationconflicts, influences organization climate, and takes challenges to managementthoughts, leading style, stimulation methods, and employee disposition. Finally, thispaper forms its impact model.At last, empirical research is made. Based on the analysis of the general situationof Chinese employees’ work values, the empirical research findings are as follows.Firstly, Chinese employees’ work values have generational differences. Secondly,Chinese employees have generational differences in job satisfaction, affectioncommittement, organization citizenship behaviour, work engagement and turnoverintentions. Moreover, the hypothesis regarding the impacts of work values on jobsatisfaction, affection committement, organization citizenship behavior, workengagement, turnover intentions is validated. Finally, it is validated that the differentwork values of different generations affect their work attitudes and behaviorsdifferently.In light of literature in China and English, the current study contributes to thetheory development of work values in several ways. First, it may be the first study toexplore thoroughly the current situation of work values and its generationaldifferences in China. Moreover, the current study also demonstrates fully for the first time the forming mechanism, antecdents, outcomes of generational differences ofwork values on both individual and organizational levels, and impact model.Furthermore, this paper may be the first to empirically research its outcomes onindividual level. In conclusion, this paper develops a theoretical framework forresearch on generational difference of work values, and is a valuablecomplementation to this area research. Meanwhile, this paper gives useful proposalsto the management practices, and is helpful to Chinese organizations in handling thegenerational differences of work values, especially on facing the generation of80s.