Age management in the public sector in Norway: exploring managers' decision latitude

Age management in the public sector in Norway: exploring managers’decision latitude

Trude Furunesa*, Reidar J. Mykletuna and Per Erik Solemb

aNorwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway;bNOVA – Norwegian Social Research, Oslo, Norway

In response to decreasing retirement ages, greater attention is paid to ways of extendingolder workers’ careers without inflicting them with unacceptable strain. Workplacemanagement is supposed to be a key success factor and possible solutions have beencoined ‘age management’. The purpose of this article is to assess the extent to whichmanagers accept responsibility for age management issues, how do they perceive theirdecision latitude (options and constraints) with regard to age management and howdoes this perceived decision latitude vary in relation to a range of organisational andmanagerial variables. Data used consist of responses from 672 managers in the publicsector. Decision latitude was defined by employees’ support, option to reorganise work,sufficient human resources, sufficient budget resources and opportunities to unite agemanagement with efficiency demands. The results showed that management attitudeswere the most important predictors, explaining 22.4% of the variance for the decisionlatitude. Changing managers’ attitudes and providing access to human and financialresources seem to be the most important criteria for influencing on managers’ perceiveddecision latitude and contributing to retention of older employees.

Keywords: active ageing; ageing and work; age management; decision latitude;management decisions; manager attitudes

Introduction

Population ageing in most OECD countries is a result of large post-war cohorts, declining

fertility rates and increasing life expectancy (OECD 2004, p. 22), implying that the

middle-aged and elderly segments of the population are increasing. Hence, one would

expect the older part of the labour force to increase parallel to demographic changes.

Paradoxically, this does not yet seem to be the case. Employment in the older age groups

dropped in most OECD countries over the last decades, and levelled out in the 1990s

(Ilmarinen 2006).

Mechanisms that strongly influence the human resource flow in organisations are often

described as push and pull factors (Mykletun 2006). Push factors comprise reasons within

the organisation or in the labour market which trigger early exit and often go against the

employees’ own wishes, e.g. managers’ negative attitudes towards older workers, or lack

of strategies and actions towards retaining older workers. Pull factors are external factors

that may be perceived as incentives to exit early, e.g. access to early retirement schemes

may increase the risk of early retirement (Midtsundstad 2005). One consequence of these

ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online

q 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2011.559096

http://www.informaworld.com

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

The International Journal of Human Resource Management,

Vol. 22, No. 6, March 2011, 1232–1247

mechanisms is that many older workers leave the labour market before they reach the

statutory retirement age. Although research suggests that age management is one way to

increase older workers’ participation rates (Ilmarinen 2001, 2004), it seems difficult to

implement (Mykletun and Furunes 2009). The purpose of this paper is to explore the

decision latitude that managers perceive when implementing age management in their

organisation. This is done by constructing a scale measuring managers’ perceived decision

latitude on age management issues.

In the research literature, the terms ‘older’ or ‘senior’ workers are used to describe

workers aged 45 þ (Kilbom, Westerholm, Hallsten and Furaker 1997; Tikkanen 1999;

Ilmarinen 2001) or 55 þ (Sterns and Miklos 1995; Noonan 2005). As various industries

meet different challenges in relation to managing the human resource flow as well as

retaining the older workforce, definitions of older workers also differ. As the context of

this study is Norway, recent national polls indicate that workers are conceived of as older

at an age of 57 and above (Dalen 2009).

The study context

In Norway, the statutory retirement age is 67 years. However, the factual average age of

retirement is 59.5 years, including persons pensioned for disability when counting the

entire workforce from the age of 18, whereas it is 63.5 years when one bases calculations

on the workforce aged 50 þ (2006). Today, 76% of the Norwegian working population is

employed in the public and private service sectors. Within these, some branches, such as in

public health and municipals, constitute institutions with long histories. However, the

focus on service delivery as such is recent. The public sector employs a large percentage of

older workers, and has already experienced increasing number of early exits from working

life, either through the early retirement scheme (AFP) or through disability pensions. As

the pool of qualified potential workforce diminishes, employers are also starting to realise

that early retirement causes a huge loss of workforce competence, in addition to increased

costs related to pension payments.

To make the labour market and workplaces better prepared for the future, the

Norwegian Government and social partners have tried to meet social and organisational

challenges related to an ageing workforce. Two national programmes are the result of this

tripartite cooperation: ‘the National Initiative for Senior Workers’ and the ‘Inclusive

Working Life Agreement’ (IWL). The rationale behind both programmes is that human

resource policies and practices play a role in individual career decisions, also evidenced by

research (Brooke 2003; McCuiston, Woolridge and Pierce 2004). The National Initiative

focuses on the implementation of age management in working life. The IWL Agreement

encompasses three goals: (1) reducing sick leave rates, (2) including disabled persons in

the workplace and (3) retaining older members of the workforce, respectively. In this

paper, the focus is on examining how the third intention may be operationalised. Ninety

per cent of public sector organisations have signed this agreement, which was introduced

in 2001. Nevertheless, the main effort has been on reducing sick leave rates, leaving the

effort to retain the older workforce at a low priority level (Grambo 2004).

On the level of each organisation, the IWL Agreement is signed by the General

Manager and the Union representatives. Day-to-day management, in terms of

administrative and operational tasks related to the IWL Agreement, is mainly carried

out by the organisations themselves, with optional practical support from the Regional

Public Working Life Services. According to the IWL Agreement, managers are

responsible for carrying out personnel tasks that support the goals of the IWL Agreement.

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1233

Public sector organisations in Norway have two levels of managers: administrative

managers and operational (middle) managers. Since 90% of all public sector organisations

have signed the IWL Agreement, most of these managers consequently have obligations to

act in accordance with the IWL Agreement. Yet, due to limited success and a lack of

efforts to retain the older workforce (Grambo 2004), it is interesting to look at how

managerial responsibilities are operationalised with regard to age management issues.

Age management and the concept of decision latitude

Ilmarinen (2006, p. 120) defines age management as ‘taking the employee’s age and age-

related factors into account in daily work management, work planning and work

organisation; thus everyone – regardless of age – can achieve personal and organisational

targets healthily and safely’. Ilmarinen (2004) suggests that age management training must

be in place in order to implement age management at company level. Age management

training should aim at (1) providing relevant information and experiences for managers,

(2) improving attitudes towards ageing workers, (3) supporting managers for a good

human resource policy and practices and (4) increasing the competence of management on

ageing issues. Focusing on the employee, Walker (1999, p. 370) defines good-practice age

management as ‘ . . . providing an environment in which each individual is able to achieve

his or her potential without being disadvantaged by their age.’

In order to put age management into practice, it is important that managers at all levels

are involved. Implementation of age management practices will rely on managers’

understanding, attitudes and motivations, and their decision latitude in order to meet the

actual needs of each of their older employees so as to help them prolong their working

careers (Seitsamo, Tuomi, Ilmarinen and Gould 2008; Ilmarinen 2009). Those needs might

imply a need for social and structural reengineering to tailor the workplace to the individual.

Both job demands and content could be adjusted, learning opportunities provided and job

motivation stimulated. Diversification of job demands will have to rely on communication

with co-workers and on their acceptance and support of the changes (Walker and Taylor

1998; Ilmarinen 2001). Thus, managers must possess economic, intellectual, emotional and

organisational resources and a wide range of skills to achieve this goal.

Until now, one of the challenges in Norwegian working life seems to be that the IWL

Agreement lacks practical and theoretical solutions for its implementation. In this context,

the authors suggest that it is important that managers have decision latitude in order to do

their jobs effectively. By decision latitude, we mean that the amount of freedom managers

have to implement and practice age management within their unit. The definition is in line

with Meijman and Mulder’s (1998, p. 22) description of decision latitude as ‘the

possibility of control which the situation allows’, and their reasoning is seemingly

appropriate for age management. For a manager to utilise his or her decision latitude, he or

she has to perceive it. This implies that the utilisation of decision latitude to a large degree

depends on a manager’s ability and willingness to be proactive. If a manager fails to

recognise the opportunity he or she has, it is hard to seize it. Even though being aware of

the possibility of exercising control, the manager may lack the resources, willingness or

skills to do so (Meijman and Mulder 1998). In defining the decision latitude concept,

Meijman and Mulder differentiate between subjective and objective decision latitude,

where subjective is equal to perceived decision latitude. This implies that managers who

are tired or unwilling may apply inefficient or wrong strategies and also fail to notice

signals from the surroundings. The consequence may be that they do not even utilise the

decision latitude, which they objectively have.

T. Furunes et al.1234

A corresponding concept used in organisational psychology is job decision latitude

(Karasek 1979). Karasek’s stress model may be useful in finding applicable solutions for

managers to take action on age management issues. His model predicts that in jobs where

job demands are high and job decision latitude is low, the worker’s general problem-

solving skills will be reduced. The authors suggest that this applies to line-manager

positions as well, as it creates a passive work situation for line managers. Karasek

recommends that the ideal situation is where the relationship between job demands and job

decision latitude is highly correlated, i.e. the job demands placed on the workers have to

match the discretion permitting these workers in deciding how to meet certain demands.

As Karasek’s model is mainly used in relation to organisational stress and health issues

(Karasek and Theorell 1990), the present study is not based on Karasek’s specific

measures.

The way the concept is understood here, giving managers decision latitude also means

giving them, besides adequate resources, knowledge and skills, which enable them to

understand and contribute to organisational performance within the area of optimal

management of the older workforce. In the context of this study, and according to the IWL

Agreement, this would imply that administrative and operational managers would

conceive of themselves as: able and motivated to implement age management actions

applicable for his or her subordinates, equipped with adequate resources and ways of

organising work, able to promote support for such practices in the entire workforce and

being knowledgeable about how to enhance age management in their units. In order to

fulfil these management tasks, the authors of this article argue that managers must fully

perceive their decision latitude.

Public sector challenges and decision latitudes for age management

This study is undertaken in the public sector, where work includes a high degree of service-

delivery settings and most tasks are politically imposed and supervised. Resources are

organised through budgets, with limited room to expand those budgets by sales or increased

production. Like many Western countries, Norwegian public sector organisations have

undergone transformations over the past two decades, by which old-style public

administration has been replaced by apparently newer practices (Holtom 2001; Pettersen

2001; Postle 2002; Jackson and Lapsley 2003; Merali 2003; Gould-Williams 2004; Kickert

and Stillman 2004; McKay 2004); a change that might open ways for age management.

According to Pettersen (2001), the entire public sector in Norway has faced new

management challenges due to organisational changes, and increasing demands placed on

organisational performance. Because of current changes and restructuring of the sector,

additional management challenges have occurred at both administrative and operational

levels. Horizontal de-specialisation or mergers of lateral units in the municipal and nursing

services have resulted in increased unit size and increased responsibilities for operational

unit managers (Kristoffersen and Solem 1998). Reducing the number of middle managers is

a common intention behind such changes. Because these changes have added complexities

to the managerial tasks, they may be counterproductive with regard to implementing age

management in that they drain the resources and attract attention to other obligations. Thus,

one might fear that managers would find few or even no economic and human resources, or

practical possibilities, of optimally reorganising work so as to fit older workforce

capabilities.

Kristoffersen and Solem (1998) found that restructuring processes might lead to a

different merger of informal leaders, indicating that the remaining managers were pushed

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1235

to the limits of their capacity. One implication of this might be that formal managers lose

influence on the development of social norms in the workplace, and that lack of social

acceptance of age management might develop since the work tasks themselves call for all

available energy. Implementing age management might be conceived of as breaking the

informal conceptions of organisational justice (Colquitt, Conlon, Yee Ng, Wesson and

Porter 2001).

Within organisational justice theory, four different dimensions have been discussed,

all of which are relevant to age management issues (Adams 1965; Leventhal 1980; Bies

and Moag 1986; Greenberg 1990). Several conceptual differentiations have been proposed

and measured by partly different scales, resulting in overlapping constructs, and, based on

their meta-analytic review, Colquitt et al. (2001) demonstrate that procedural,

interpersonal and informational justice appear as distinct from each other. Procedural

justice (Leventhal 1980) denotes (1) the consistencies of applied regulations across people

and time, (2) no bias involved, (3) ensuring that accurate information is applied in the

decision making, (4) contain a mechanism to correct flawed decisions, (5) be in concert

with moral standards and (6) ensure that the various groups affected are taken into

consideration, all of which are relevant to the ways in which age management programmes

are implemented. Interpersonal justice (Bies and Moag 1986; Greenberg 1990) concerns

the quality of the social interactions of the treatment people receive including the

politeness, dignity and respect of the treatment. Finally, the informational justice

(Greenberg 1990) denotes the quality of the information given to the workforce on why

procedures were applied in certain ways and why outcomes were distributed in some ways

and not in others. Within age management practices, all of these justice dimensions may

apply, especially information, consideration of moral standards and interests of all groups

affected by the changes along with treating the persons with dignity, respect and

politeness. Procedural and informational justice may be of special relevance as the IWL

Agreement is negotiated by the General Manager and the Union Representatives at their

level only, and should, therefore, ideally become implemented in the organisation and

adjustments regarding practical application. Since the concept and practice of age

management is a recent social and organisational re-engineering, little research has been

published concerning the practical issues of implementation, including the justice aspects.

Nevertheless, age management might appear to be of great future importance as it is

motivated by good intentions (Eberlin and Tatum 2005) and organisations will have to act

on this issue due to the changing demography (OECD 2006).

According to Pettersen (2001), who has studied reforms in public hospitals,

adjustments have been somewhat slow at the institutional level, and this may well also

apply to age management issues. The public sector reform itself mirrors political

decisions; however, the political and the institutional levels differ in several ways.

Research on public sector social work and public health institutions shows that limited

resources, e.g. finances or human capital, may lead to ambiguities among and tensions in

operational care managers or line managers (Postle 2002). Postle’s study shows that

reduced finances make managers feel there is no use in identifying task needs because

there are insufficient resources to meet them. Managers were also ambiguous about

reduced finances, because more time had to be spent on administrative tasks and less on

contact with people. Thus, middle-manager jobs seem to have become more complex over

the years, especially due to ‘ever increasing procedural instructions’ (Postle 2002, p. 343);

hence, managers feel their decision latitude is limited. Compared with middle managers,

managers on the administrative level should be better able to face the challenge of age

management, provided relevant ideas were conveyed to them from their political leaders

T. Furunes et al.1236

and the Board of Directors. Conversely, one would expect that middle managers might

have their minds more on daily operations, and be less concerned with age management

issues.

Furthermore, Postle’s findings show that ‘few opportunities existed for care managers

to reflect on their complex work in supervision because an increasing amount of managers’

time was taken up with meetings, leaving them less time for this’ (2002, p. 344). Care

managers in public health services are found to feel like gatekeepers and rationers of

increasingly limited resources in a job where they are expected to provide needs-led

services. In other words, the work tension may be expressed as a ‘tension between

completing paperwork and direct work with people and their networks’ (2002, p. 347).

Again, one may argue that attention to age management issues is not well supported by the

current developments.

Postle (2002) also points out another challenge that may influence middle managers’

possibilities of taking action on new responsibilities, viz. divided loyalty. Divided loyalty

is a classic middle-manager challenge because it becomes unclear to them whether they

serve individuals’ needs or those of a bureaucratic organisation. This situation leads to

difficulties in reconciling different aspects of their work (Postle 2002), and may thus

influence their daily work priorities.

Walker and Taylor (1998) and Ilmarinen (2001) argue that employers (and managers)

should redesign work to fit older workers. In taking responsibility for the IWL Agreement

and taking special actions with the intent to retain older workers, open communication

with the workforce should be emphasised by middle managers. Thereby, they could secure

social organisational justice, access to sufficient amounts of economic and human

resources, the option of reorganising work and the possibilities of combining claims for

improved effectiveness with individually tailored and motivating work structures for the

older workforce.

Research questions

Public managers at all levels may face many challenges when trying to implement age

management if one contrasts the demands for organisational flexibility and management

skills with the limitations outlined in this section. The research questions explored in this

study were (1) To what extent do administrative and operational managers conceive of

themselves as being responsible for age management actions? (2) What are the criteria that

define managers’ decision latitude with regard to age management? (3) To what extent do

middle managers feel that they have sufficient decision latitude to implement age

management? (4) Which organisational features and individual manager attributes predict

managers’ decision latitudes?

Methodology

The study is based on a quantitative approach using a mail questionnaire. The survey was

targeted to managers in the public sector in Norway, including public hospitals. These

managers represented two managerial levels, administrative managers and operational

middle managers. The data were collected during the autumn of 2004.

The sample

Informants were selected by random sampling from the KLP Pension Insurance Company’s

(KLP) list of member organisations, which covers three types of organisations:

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1237

municipalities, county administration and public hospitals. An invitation to respond was

also sent to a random sample of deputy mayors and chief administrative officers.

In total, 1587 questionnaires were distributed. The total number of valid responses was

672, rendering a response rate of 42.3%. There was an equal distribution of male and

female respondents, and respondents’ mean age was 51.5 years. The sample included 54%

municipal managers, 16% county administration managers and 30% managers from public

hospitals. Except for the county administration segment, which was over-represented,

these segments were equal in size to segments in KLP’s customer database. The sample

included 28% administrative managers and 72% operational middle managers. Forty per

cent of the respondents had less than 20 subordinates, 26% managed 20–49 subordinates,

18% had 50–99 subordinates and 17 had more than 100 subordinates in their unit.

Questionnaire and data analysis

The questionnaire contained seven dimensions, which, according to research literature,

might affect managers’ decision latitude on age management: (a) existing employee

support (Eberlin and Tantum 2005), (b) the possibilities of organising work (Ilmarinen

2001), (c) human resources available (Ilmarinen 2001), (d) budget resources (Ilmarinen

2001), (e) managers’ possibilities of combining age management issues with increasing

demands for efficiency within the organisation (Ilmarinen 2001), (f) employees’ attitudes

to age management issues and (g) internal communication with subordinates.

Exploratory factor analysis, using principal component analysis with Varimax rotation,

was applied to identify possible latent structure (variables) that measures decision latitude

for age management issues. Five (a–e) out of the seven variables loaded on factor 1. On

the basis of this, a sum score variable was created, named decision latitude. Internal

consistency as tested by Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.70. Cronbach’s alpha would improve to 0.71 if

item (e) was deleted. However, it was kept in the analysis for theoretical reasons. The

decision latitude variable was used as a dependent variable in the subsequent multiple

regression analysis in order to explore how it might be affected by structural, positional

and individual variables.

On the basis of the literature discussed earlier in this article, five different types of

predictors (independent variables) were seen as relevant of managers’ perceptions of

decision latitude. (1) Structural factors, such as the type of organisation they worked for,

reflecting the possibility that different employers might have presented the obligations to

implement age management with different degrees. Similar results might also have

developed from the differences in tasks and services, which the institutions were

supposed to maintain. (2) Managers’ positions in the organisation, which included

whether they were administrative or operational managers, the number of subordinates

they had in their unit and their degree of responsibility for age management. One expects

that administrative managers would be more aware of and involved in the ideologies of age

management, thus more inclined to perceive of having decision latitude compared with

operational middle managers. However, in line with traditional management strategies,

operational middle managers might need more decision latitude in order to feel committed

to action. (3) Managers’ attitudes towards ageing workers and age management, which

were covered by questions about whether or not they thought it was important to work with

age management actions, or if there was too much focus on the issue, and whether they

thought age management could prevent early exits. Moreover, the respondents were asked

about their access to information on age management, and about perceptions of age-

related issues and capabilities among the workforce that could facilitate age management.

T. Furunes et al.1238

This was included because managers often stereotype older workers (Chan, Tan and Koh

2000; Chiu, Chan, Snape and Redman 2001). Also, managers’ personal attitudes towards

age management have been found to colour their own personnel policy practices (Taylor

and Walker 1998). (4) Managers’ own career plans, operationalised as whether they

themselves wanted to continue working after 62 or retire early. These were conceived of as

plans based on both actual experience with the work and the organisational demands in the

actual work place, and on simple generalisations of attitudes from self to others, as well as

an issue of relationships between consistencies of attitudes and selective learning (Zanna

and Olson 1982). (5) Gender and age were included as demographic data. Managers’ own

ages could be of interest because increasing age should increase the feeling of social

identity with older employees (Messick and Macckie 1989). So far, researchers have not

focused on gender differences in perceptions of older members of the workforce among

managers. However, because female managers have less access to the most central

positions, it might be expected that they still have less powerful positions and, thus, should

feel that they have less decision latitude with regard to age management issues than men do.

In total, one dependent variable and 15 independent variables were used. Variables 1

and 2 were dummy variables (0 ¼ no, 1 ¼ yes) for type of organisation; the category

county administration was used as the baseline. For variable 3, 0 ¼ operational middle

manager and 1 ¼ administrative manager. For variable 4, number of subordinates (range

1–5), 5 was the highest value. Variables 5–9 and 11–13 (ranged 1–4) had 4 as the highest

value, indicating that the respondent strongly agreed with the statement. Gender was

coded as 0 ¼ man and 1 ¼ woman. The age variable was metric.

The independent variables were entered in five steps in a multiple regression analysis

by the enter method. Each step created a model that will be explained in the next section.

The predictors concerning organisational matters such as type of organisation and data on

respondent’s position were entered in the first and second step. In steps 3–5, variables on

respondent’s attitudes, respondent’s own career plans, age and gender were added,

correspondingly.

Results

Ninety-one per cent of the managers confirmed that their organisations had signed the IWL

Agreement. Age management responsibilities were divided among administrative and

operational managers as follows: among administrative managers, 37% had full

responsibility, 37% had non-defined responsibility and 26% had no responsibility for age

management. Among operational managers, 43% had full responsibility, 32% had non-

defined responsibility and 25% had no responsibility for age management. This indicates

that more operational managers claimed full responsibility, but this distribution also

implies that well below half of both groups agreed to having full responsibility for age

management actions. One-fourth of the managers denied any responsibility for age

management issues.

Table 1 displays the distribution of managers’ responses to the five items that loaded

on the decision latitude variable. The managers were asked to what extent they agreed or

disagreed with the statements. A majority felt that employees supported age management

thinking (Item a) in the organisation (69%), and about half (47%) of the respondents felt

they had possibilities of designing work tasks to fit older workers’ needs (Item b).

Conversely, for the three following variables (Items c, d and e), approximately 80% of the

respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statements, indicating that few

resources are available for them to facilitate work with age management issues.

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1239

The factor loadings were as follows: (a) employees support age management thinking,

value 0.29, (b) managers have reasonable possibilities of organising work tasks to fit older

workers, value 0.77, (c) there are enough human resources to organise work tasks to fit

older workers, value 0.79, (d) budget resources allow managers to organise work tasks to

fit older workers, value 0.77 and (e) it is easy to combine good personnel management with

increasing demands for efficiency and change, value 0.61. The reliability coefficient alpha

for the decision latitude variable was 0.70. The range of the decision latitude variable was

2.4 with a mean of 2.1 (SD ¼ 0.5).

In order to explain the variance of managers’ perceived decision latitude, 13

independent predictors were run against the dependent variable in a multiple regression

analysis (Table 2). The totally explained variance for the dependent variable increased

from 4% in the first model to 22.4% in the last, with significant increases in explanatory

power through all five steps.

Model 1, Type of organisation, accounted for 4.3% of the explained variance.

Managers in public hospitals and municipalities reported the more limited decision

latitude, whereas being a manager with the county administration did not make any

difference. This indicates that type of organisation makes a difference in how managers

perceive their decision latitude, and that county administration managers perceive to have

more decision latitude on age management. The effects were significant across all five

models.

For Model 2, Respondent’s position in the organisation, the explained variance had a

significant increase by 6.5%. Compared with operational middle managers, administrative

managers reported the more extended decision latitude. The fewer the subordinates, the

more extended the decision latitude. There was also a unique and positive effect of having

full responsibility for age management actions on the perception of decision latitude. This

indicates that respondent’s position in the organisation plays a role in how they perceive

their decision latitude: higher level managers, managers with few subordinates and

managers with full responsibility for age management perceived to have more decision

latitude. For all three predictors added in this model, the significant effects were stable

throughout all steps.

Table 1. Frequencies for the seven items included in the ‘Decision latitude’ measure (N ¼ 672).

Original variablesStrongly

agree Agree DisagreeStronglydisagree

(a) Employees support age management thinking 6 63 29 2(b) I have reasonable possibilities to organise work

tasks to fit older workers9 38 46 7

(c) There are enough human resources to organisework tasks to fit older workers

2 18 50 30

(d) Budget resources allow me to organise worktasks to fit older workers

2 12 51 35

(e) It is easy to combine good personnel managementwith increasing demands for efficiency and change

2 18 43 37

(f) Employees’ attitudes make it easy to redesignwork for older workers

27 58 14 1

(g) I have a good dialogue with my older subordinatesand know their needs

21 70 5 4

T. Furunes et al.1240

Model 3, Respondent’s attitudes, gave a significant increase in the explained variance

by 8.9%. Managers who believed age management actions were important, and that the

employer could prevent early exits through management actions, also reported the widest

decision latitude. There was no significant effect of thinking that there is too much focus

on age management issues. However, managers who were lacking information on how the

workplace could be designed to fit older workers reported having limited decision latitude.

Those indicating a high age to describe an older worker reported also wider decision

latitude than managers indicating a low age. Managers, who agreed that older workers

were not expected to take part in change processes, reported having limited decision

latitude. This model suggests that respondents’ attitudes play a central role in how

managers perceive their decision latitude. First, there seems to be a division between

managers who think that the employer can prevent early retirement through age

management actions, and those who do not believe that early retirement can be prevented,

as the latter group report limited decision latitude. Second, managers who claim to have

too little information about how the workplace can be designed to fit older workers or who

Table 2. Regression analysis for decision latitude on age management.

Standardised beta coefficient

Variable list (predictors) Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

1 Type of organisation:Municipality managers

2 .193*** 2 .167*** 2 .169*** 2 .152** 2 .162***

2 Public hospital managers 2 .286*** 2 .246*** 2 .212*** 2 .204*** 2 .194***3 Managerial level (administrative

or operational middle manager).109** .100** .097** .090*

4 Number of subordinates 2 .150*** 2 .179*** 2 .186*** 2 .186***5 Degree of responsibility for

age management.220*** .164*** .162*** .154***

6 I think it is important to workwith age management actions

.085* .083* .084*

7 I think there is too much focuson age management actions

.065 .071 .061

8 I lack information on how theworkplace may be designed to fitolder workers

2 .192*** 2 .167*** 2 .174***

9 To what extent can the employerprevent early exits?

.199** .178*** .179***

10 At what age do employeesbecome ‘older workers’?

.084* .098** .104**

11 Older workers are not expectedto take part in change processes

.084* .093** .090*

12 To what extent would you preferearly retirement?

2 .094** 2 .096**

13 To what extent would you preferto continue working with a reducedworkload?

2 .099** 2 .112**

14 Gender 2 .105**15 Age .056*Adjusted R 2 .043*** .108*** .197*** .212*** .224***

Note: Effects of type of organisation, organisational characteristics, managers’ attitudes, managers’ personalretirement plans and managers’ age and gender; beta correlation coefficients and significance levels (N ¼ 633);

*p , 0.05, **p , 0.01, ***p , 0.001.

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1241

do not think it is necessary to include older workers in change processes report less

decision latitude. For all variables added, the effects were quite stable throughout the

model.

Model 4, Respondent’s own career plans, significantly increased the explanation by

1.5%. This indicated that managers who wish to retire early, and those who wish for a

reduction in workload when they reach the age when they may choose early retirement,

reported having limited decision latitude compared with managers who wish to continue

working. Although there is a low increase in the explained variance, the model indicates

that managers’ own career plans seem to play a role in how they perceive their decision

latitude. The variables were stable throughout the model.

Through Model 5, predicting for an effect of Respondent’s age and gender, the

explanation power was significantly increased by 1.2%. The model showed that men

reported wider decision latitude than women. There was a positive correlation between age

and the perception of decision latitude. Older managers reported slightly wider decision

latitude than younger managers, all other predictors controlled for.

Discussion and conclusions

In this study, age management was explored among administrative and operational

managers. Findings show that operational managers acknowledge full responsibility for

age management to a larger degree than administrative managers. On the one hand, the

result could reflect organisations in which middle managers have decision latitude for

implementing age management. On the other hand, large groups of managers

acknowledged ‘no responsibility’ or ‘non-defined responsibility’. These findings suggest

that few managers acknowledged being aware of full responsibility. Rather, they argued

that the responsibility was shared with other positions. The findings could be taken at face

value, reflecting the slow implementation processes for new responsibilities in these types

of organisations. However, there is some doubt about the validity of these responses

because accepting responsibility for age management actions would add a significant new

work load to these managers, possibly resulting to another ‘knowing–doing gap’ (Pfeffer

and Sutton 2000) in their already busy schedules. If so, the implementation of age

management may be still further away in the future than could be expected from the fact

that the General Managers and the Union Representatives signed the IWL Agreement only

a few years ago (Grambo 2004).

Of the seven dimensions explored, the following five were found to define a criterion

for managers’ decision latitude for age management: employee support for age

management, practical possibilities to redesign work to fit older workers, sufficient human

resources, sufficient budget resources and the possibility to combine good personnel

management with increasing demands on efficiency. Managers in the public sector

apparently recognise employee support and practical solutions, indicating that age

management actions do not interfere with the perception of procedural, interpersonal and

informational justice. However, a very global indicator of justice perceptions has been

applied here, increasing the risk for inflated estimates by the managers – and calling for

further research in this area. The view is supported by the finding that very few managers

acknowledged opportunities to organise work to fit older workers’ needs due to a lack of

finances and human resources. These results seem to concur with previous research, where

restricted resources have been found to cause ambiguities and tensions, especially in

middle managers’ work (Postle 2002).

T. Furunes et al.1242

A first priority requirement for implementing age management would be to provide

access to adequate human and financial resources for the administrative and operational

managers, along with unambiguous expectations on outcome from the Board of Directors.

This should be supported by continuous modelling of more appropriate attitudes through

practical examples. In a human resource management perspective, the challenge is to

ensure that age management issues are managed in the most effective way. Managers with

formal responsibility reported higher decision latitude than those who claim to have no

responsibility for age management. Because operational managers are closer to the

employees, and thus more prone to face age management concerns, the distribution of

responsibility may be an issue. Therefore, the modest effort when it comes to retaining

older workers may be explained by restricted decision latitude for operational middle

managers. Without decision latitude, they will neither be motivated nor empowered to take

action, regardless of the fact that the employer has signed an agreement on retaining the

older workforce. The same pattern will probably appear if managers lack information on

how to execute age management responsibilities, or are simply not told to pay attention to

the implementation of the IWL Agreement.

Sufficient decision latitude was most likely to be found among managers in an

administrative position, with few subordinates and full responsibility for age management.

Furthermore, he or she was likely to believe that such issues were important, and that such

efforts could prevent early exits. Also, they were more likely to be men than women, a

finding that may reflect the often-observed gender differences with regard to

organisational influence, and which has proved hard to change. Also, older managers

tended to report higher decision latitude than younger ones, probably reflecting increased

insight drawing on personal experience combined with accumulated ‘wisdom’ as a result

of their own ageing (Baltes, Gluck and Kunzmann 2002). In addition, tenure may also

facilitate access to social and organisational resources that may provide assistance with

difficult tasks (Hansson, de Koekkoek, Neece and Patterson 1997). Interventions could

focus on motivating older managers to teach their possible tricks to their younger

colleagues.

Moreover, managers with high-decision latitude did not tend to prefer early retirement

or a reduction in workload for themselves. Managers’ own career plans are significant

predictors for their perception of decision latitude as were their attitudes towards older

workers. Managers holding positive attitudes towards older workers recognised more

possibilities and reported higher decision latitude than managers with negative attitudes.

Within the frame of this decision latitude model, several independent variables had a

unique effect on the dependent variable. Most of the variables seem to have significant

relevance in a predictor model, and 23% of the variance was accounted for by the predictor

variables. The largest increase in explanation power was accomplished by including

measures of managers’ attitudes. An implication for practice may, therefore, be to

emphasise an approach to managers as individuals in order to change their attitudes. At

least two approaches may be feasible for this purpose. First, education could be used to

demonstrate to managers the ideas of age management, including the advantages and

challenges of employing older workforce, as well as how the existing decision latitudes

may be employed for this purpose. Second, the existing decision latitudes could be

expanded to allow room for more appropriate age management and for learning of

managers through daily practice. In either case, the self-sustaining qualities of age

management should be underlined and supported in the sense that it hardly costs more to

retain older workers than it does to replace them with younger colleagues. Furthermore,

there is a need to assure that possible economic savings from retaining older workers

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1243

should be employed in expanding the decision latitudes for this purpose even more in the

years to come.

A different approach to extend older workers’ careers can be taken by focusing directly

on changing managers’ behaviour. As attitudes and behaviour are interrelated (Albarracın,

Zanna, Johnson and Kumkale 2005; Eagly and Chaiken 2005; Maio, Olson, Bernard and

Luke 2006), changing managers’ behaviour should also influence their attitudes. Several

measures might be applied to accomplish such changes: leadership operates in several

organisational channels such as budgets and accounting, delegations of power and

reporting to own managers, face-to-face interactions and organisational cultures, and

managers are rewarded for being loyal to the requirements and sensitive to the culture of

their organisation (Yukl 2006). Their decision latitude for age management should be

designed to allow age management but, as attitudes are important regardless of the width

of the decision latitude, it would be safe to establish reporting procedures on efforts and

achievements in practicing age management, and reward managers for good performance

also in these areas. The organisation should communicate the value of older workforce

contribution to older workers themselves by encouraging them to remain at work up until

normal retirement age or beyond. Included in these messages should be expectations

regarding participation in changes, development and learning activities in line with what is

conveyed to younger colleagues (Solem and Mykletun 1997). In addition, managers must

demonstrate the new organisational philosophy through social and organisational re-

engineering, resulting in alternative job tasks and responsibilities to fit older workers’

needs. An additional approach would be to implement a system by which operational

managers would be obliged to report age management outcomes to their superiors. Finally,

the General Manager should discuss the outcomes, in order to give appropriate feedback to

the various managers. When these behaviours are modelled through face-to-face

interactions and supported by the organisational communication and culture, a change in

managers’ attitudes would most likely tend to follow as well.

Obviously, one might question to which extent these Norwegian public sector

experiences could be of interest for researchers and practitioners beyond Norway. The

question is particularly relevant due to the high older workforce participation rate

observed in Norway compared with what is the case in most other countries. Moreover, it

should be stated that Norway has low levels of unemployment (February 2011: 3.0%).

Indeed, this makes the Norwegian case even more interesting. Even under these

favourable conditions, age management philosophies are hard to convert into operational

strategies and practical solutions. Therefore, under less favourable settings, public sector

institutions might be likely to face obstacles more severe than those observed in the study

reported here.

Another concern relates to the design and methods of the study. The sampling method

led to uncertainties regarding the representativeness of the managers included in the study.

Consequently, the distributions of the responses may not accurately reflect the population

and also the factor structure of the decision latitude. Future studies should investigate the

stability of this structure across new samples, and also compare the distributions of scores

used here to identify how the decision latitudes may appear in different contexts.

Moreover, the conclusions here rely on self-reported data from the same questionnaire

study. Hence, the effect of common method variance may operate and inflate the

relationships observed. Also some respondents may have given inaccurate answers to hide

their actual conceptions and attitudes to the theme of the study. Future research should

attempt using alternative approaches to overcome such uncertainties. Further development

of the scale should include research across different organisations, branches and

T. Furunes et al.1244

occupations (Furunes and Mykletun 2009). Further research should also focus on practical

ways that lead to bridging the knowing–doing gap (Pfeffer and Sutton 2000).

Additionally, more detailed knowledge is needed about how to distribute responsibilities

for age management and how to counteract negative attitudes towards older workers; as

such negative attitudes are related to age discrimination (Furunes and Mykletun 2010).

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