Do Values Differ Across Generations

In the workplace today, different generations are working side by side and closely together. One of the most important and unique benefits of generational blending is creativity. People who come together from different perspectives always have the potential to bring different thoughts and ideas to problem solving. The potential for positive synergy is great. Conversely, the generational blending and integration is also creating intergenerational problems in the workplace due to generational differences in values, worldviews, ways of working, ways of talking, thinking and even mode of attire in the workplace ( Raines, 2003).

In a workplace that requires collaboration and cooperation among workers from different generations to deliver on productivity, generational conflict among workers is likely to adversely affect productivity. The need for understanding differences and overcoming them is crucial for creating positive and fruitful working conditions that are likely to enable organization's leaders to attract and retain workers that will ensure and improve quality service and productivity (Ross and Boles, 1994).

According to (Chu, 2007), one of the factors that are likely to significantly influence employee's job satisfaction and their commitment to work is their work values. Values represent basic convictions that "a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence (Rokeach, 1973). According to Robins and Judge, values lay the foundation for our understanding of people's attitudes and motivation and influence our perceptions (Robin and Judge, 2011). Chu (2007) agrees that understanding employees' values is of vital importance because the degrees to which employees value their jobs influence their attitude towards work. Several studies have shown that values are likely to have significant influence over a variety of attitudes and behaviours. Work values have also been related to organizational commitment. Since employees from the same generation are likely to share similar norms, it is likely that their work value and their attitude towards work are likely to be influences by the generation they belong to, which suggest that changes are likely to occur in the structure of work value realm from generation to generation.

Researchers and social scientists, who study the effects of population on society, use the term "generation" to refer to people born in the same general time span who share key historical or social life experiences (Smola and Sutton, 2002). They also intimated that the effects of those life experiences tend to be relatively stable over the course of their lives. Due to these distinct life experiences, each generation develops a unique personality that determines its outlook towards authority and organization (Smola and Sutton, 2002). For example, members of