| Over the last decade, a number of books and articles have been written in the American literature discussing values and attitudes that are characteristic of different generational groups. There are studies that have found that generational cohorts can be identified based on their different work values. These studies were conducted using samples based in U.S. organizations. There are no known comparable research results available in Europe. To better understand the phenomenon of the multigenerational workplace in Europe, this research study explored how workers in each generation have widely different values, needs, motivations, career goals, and work styles, and whether they bring different expectations to the workplace in terms of what potential impact generational diversity on the workplace could have for organizations, and their leadership. A modified survey based on surveys of the work expectations of two generations---Baby Boomer and Generation X---created by Miller, Southern Cross University Australia, and the Nurse Leadership Preferences Survey created by a Wieck, was used to gather information on preferred leadership style, work values, work attitudes, work expectation, and managers' most/least desired traits. The population of the study included businesses in Vorarlberg, Austria. The study used multivariate analysis of variance to conduct tests for any significant differences between the different generational groups and their preferred leadership style, work values, work attitudes, work expectation, and summated rank scoring applied for managers' most/least desired traits. Differences were suggested for work value and work attitudes in terms of promotion, goals, and loyalty by the Generation X and Baby Boomer cohorts. Additionally, a Mann--Whitney U nonparametric analysis showed two significant differences between the two generational cohorts for two of the four clusters of managers' traits: intrinsic qualities and acquired skills. |
