Age diversity and learning outcomes in organizational training groups: the role of knowledge sharing and psychological safety

Abstract

This study advances theorizing on human resource development by conceptualizing a training group’s age diversity composition as an antecedent of participants’ learning outcomes in organizational training courses. Drawing from social identity theory, we propose that a high age diversity of the training group can inhibit participants’ learning outcomes because individuals are less likely to share knowledge than in age-homogenous groups. Furthermore, we expect that psychological safety serves as a buffer, such that participants who perceive a high level of psychological safety in a training group will engage in knowledge sharing and consequently report high learning outcomes, regardless of the training group’s age diversity composition. We tested the proposed moderated mediation model in a sample of 211 employees participating in an interactive one-day training at an automobile manufacturer. We found that perceived age diversity, but not objective age diversity, was negatively linked to participants’ learning outcomes and that this relationship was mediated by knowledge sharing. Participants’ perceptions of psychological safety served as a buffer against the negative effect of perceived age diversity. We discuss implications for the conceptual understanding of learning as an active process shaped by the training group and encourage scholars to broaden their understanding of training design elements.

Keywords:

• Age diversity
• knowledge sharing
• learning
• psychological safety
• training

Acknowledgements

An earlier, abridged version of this article was included in the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings 2015.

Funding

This research project was supported by the WDN – WISE Demographic Network, which is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors

Notes

1 We also tested a multilevel moderated mediation model, as trainees in the same training session shared the same instructor and contextual conditions. Namely, the training group identifier was entered as a cluster variable using MLmed for SPSS (Rockwood & Hayes, 2017). This analysis revealed the same result patterns and so we report the more parsimonious model.