Wing Sheung Leung

Current Position: n.a.
Thesis Title:
New Worlds of Work: Consequences of the differential effects of generational attitudes

Everyone has a picture in mind when you ask them ‘what does a workplace look like?’.
Traditional offices in which you arrive at 9am and leave by 6pm. You have your own fixed
place in the office. Though this is how a workplace generally looks like, much of it is likely
going to change with the introduction of ‘the new workplace’. This ‘new workplace’ differs
from the ‘old workplace’ as it assumes that work should no longer be bound to time and
space, this philosophy assumes the extensive use of technology as a supporting medium for
the new workplace. This is more efficient for organizations and also increases employee
satisfaction as the flexibility allows them to balance their work- and familylife. This research
focuses solely on the ‘new workplace’ as introduced by Microsoft (Microsoft, 2010), they call
it ‘the New World of Work’ (Het nieuwe werken). The realization of this philosophy is
different within every organization, therefore a more limited context is needed.

In this thesis we add another factor to this theorem: generations. In the current
workplace there are four generations actively participating of which three will be discussed in
this thesis: Generation Y, Generation X and the Baby Boomers. Researches have been done
on this subject and generational differences have been found. However, these researches have
been done in the ‘old workplace’ and the changes in the workplace are most likely going to
affect the current beliefs about generational differences. The question to be answered in this
research is Do Baby Boomers experience a lower level of employee satisfaction and work life
balance compared to Generation X and Y after the implementation of the New World of
Work?

The data used was collected from Microsoft in 2007 and 2008. The proposed issue is
that Baby Boomers, due to their lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity with technology, will
ultimately cause them to not be able to adjust as well to the ‘new workplace’ as the two
younger generations. Though generational differences are found during the data analyses of
this thesis, it appears that the results of this research do not supported the proposed
hypotheses. Baby Boomers appear to be more satisfied about their job and gain a better worklife
balance through the New Worls of Work compared to the more technology savvy
Generation Y. This could be due to the fact that the Generation Y in the sample were more
change resistant compared to the other two generations and the fact that this generation did
not have children yet, which lowers their need to balance work- and familylife.

Despite the limitations that are associated with this research (such as small and
unequal sample sizes), which causes generalizability to be questioned, these results do allow an interesting thought to arise in which the assumption that the older generations due to their lesser knowledge about technology will be less satisfied in the NWoW does not hold.

Future research could focus on the 'new worklace' and investigate whether the generational differences change in this 'new workplace' or differ from the previous situation. Moreover, if however that study would indicate that the younger generations are less satisfied, a qualitative study might offer the understanding of the underlying factors for those resutls.

This study is the first combining generational effects with the concept of the 'new workplace', though limited to the interpretation of Microsoft. It provides managers with preliminary results about the perspectives of the different generations in this workplace revolution. The academic contribution of this thesis is provided as it buillds on the current literature of generational effects on work-related factors. it provides an extra dimension to the current literature as it involves a 'new' kind of workplace.

For the complete thesis click here