Research Seminar "Age-Supportive HRM Practices in Organizations: Comparative Evidence from CRANET Survey" (Krista Jaakson)

Krista Jaakson (University of Tartu)

Wednesday, 5th March 2025 at 14.00-15.00 Narva 18 - 1024 and Zoom

Attracting and retaining older employees, even those who have already retired, may necessitate the use of special Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. We consider such practices age-supportive and this research focuses on the macro-level factors of age-supportive practices. We examine data from 5,262 larger organizations in 38 countries using Cranet data obtained in 2021-2022. We pose one research question – which macro-level factors (resource-based, institutional, and cultural) determine the use of age-supportive HRM practices? – and develop and test nine hypotheses. Our findings indicate that institutional and cultural factors, specifically individualism and looseness, largely explain the age-supportiveness of the firms in a country. Contrary to expectations resource related factors like demographics, rate of unemployment, or share of immigrants offer mixed results. We complement quantitative analysis with two expert interviews inspired by our study findings.