Resumo

Population aging configures a society where the workforce will gradually have older workers (OWs). As innovation is crucial to organizations' survival, the aging workforce is a concern (Nagarajan et al., 2019). This research presents some insights of the issue based on a systematic literature review. The results indicate that the number of publications on the topic is scarce. The most frequent discussions in reviewed papers deal with ageism, the impact of innovation and new technologies on aging workers, and managerial measures related to OWs and intergenerational working groups.

This study conducted a systematic literature review to situate the scientific production about older workers and innovation in academic publications aiming to discover the main research themes on the topic to gain new insights that could inform future research.

Current definitions of Older Worker (OW) tend to consider multidimensional dimensions (e.g., motivation and readiness to adapt to novelties) instead of looking solely at the chronological aspect (Wisserman et al., 2022). Existing research has underlined the strong link between innovation and business survival and a concerning issue is the performance of aging workers in innovation processes in organizations (Singh, 2021). Innovation may be defined as a result of the process and a concern is the impact of innovation (e.g., new technologies) on OWs’ performances and OW’s role in innovation.

The number of scientific production about older workers and innovation is modest. Researchers that investigate the subject concentrate in the USA and Europe, indicating that some countries with younger populations may have not awakened to the relevance of a problem that will affect them sooner or later. Some rare studies dealing with OWs' competencies in innovation instigate to seek more investigation in this direction. For instance, deeper studies about the specificities of OWs' learning (e.g., gerontogogy) process would be welcome.

Considering the global population aging and the link between innovation and organizations' survival, aging workforces concern organizations. Despite existing publications about ageism , the impact of innovation and new technologies on aging workers and managerial measures at organizational and government levels to deal with intergenerational working groups , further investigations should be conducted to better manage intergenerational teams.

Nagarajan, N. R., Wada, M., Fang, M. L., Sixsmith, A. (2019). Defining organizational contributions to sustaining an ageing workforce: a bibliometric review. European Journal of Ageing, 16, 337–361. Singh, V. (2021). Technology, Future of Work and Ageing Workforce Readiness. International Journal of Systematic Innovation, 6(4), 55-63. Wissemann, A. K., Pit, S. W., Serafin, P., & Gebhardt, H. (2022). Strategic Guidance and Technological Solutions for Human Resources Management to Sustain an Aging Workforce: Review of International Standards, Research, and Use Cases. JMIR Human Factors, 9(3), 1